Measuring the covariance between sensory systems and behavior: testing the assumptions of the sensory bias and sensory exploitation hypotheses

测量感觉系统和行为之间的协方差：测试感觉偏差和感觉利用假设的假设

• 批准号: 0645997
• 负责人: Rebecca Fuller
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-04-01 至 2010-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0645997&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Measuring; covariance; between; sensory; systems

Males of many species possess extravagant, brightly colored structures that are costly to produce and that increase their likelihood of being seen and eaten by predators. One of the great problems of evolutionary biology is understanding why females select for such extravagant traits in males. The "sensory bias hypothesis" states that female mating preferences are by-products of natural selection on the sensory system. Under this hypothesis, strong natural selection on animals to find food, avoid predators, and find proper habitats results in indirect selection on mating preferences. The fundamental assumption of this hypothesis is that the genes (and neurological pathways) that affect foraging preferences also affect mating preferences. This project will determine the extent to which different behaviors that share a common sensory system can evolve independently. The objective of the study will be to determine if behaviors share a common sensory system and/or does variation in the sensory system lead to variation in behavior. To address these questions, large amounts of phenotypic variation in visual properties will be generated and multiple aspects of behavior will be measured using the bluefin killifish, Lucania goodei, a species previously demonstrated to have large amounts of variation in visual properties both within and between populations. Broader Impacts: The study will provide the graduate student and several undergraduates experience with a variety of techniques drawn from many disciplines. This project involves the collaboration of evolutionary biologists and molecular biologists/vision physiologists that will help build connections between the evolutionary biology group within the Biological Science Department and other groups, particularly the university-wide Program in Neuroscience. The project should demonstrate that studying natural variation in vision physiology is a worthwhile endeavor, while developing further insights into the evolution of vision physiology.

许多物种的雄性都拥有奢侈的、色彩鲜艳的结构，这些结构的制造成本很高，而且增加了它们被捕食者发现和吃掉的可能性。进化生物学的一个大问题是理解为什么雌性选择雄性如此奢侈的特征。“感觉偏向假说”指出，雌性交配偏好是感觉系统自然选择的副产品。在这一假设下，动物为了寻找食物、躲避捕食者和寻找合适的栖息地而进行的强烈自然选择导致了交配偏好的间接选择。这一假设的基本假设是，影响觅食偏好的基因(和神经通路)也会影响交配偏好。这个项目将确定共享一个共同感觉系统的不同行为可以独立进化的程度。这项研究的目的将是确定行为是否共享一个共同的感觉系统，和/或感觉系统的变化是否会导致行为的变化。为了解决这些问题，将产生视觉特性的大量表型差异，并将使用蓝鳍金枪鱼(Lucania Goodei)测量行为的多个方面，该物种以前被证明在种群内和种群之间的视觉特性具有大量差异。更广泛的影响：这项研究将为研究生和几名本科生提供来自许多学科的各种技术体验。这个项目涉及进化生物学家和分子生物学家/视觉生理学家的合作，这将有助于在生物科学系的进化生物学小组和其他小组之间建立联系，特别是整个大学的神经科学计划。该项目应该证明，研究视觉生理学的自然变异是一项值得努力的工作，同时进一步深入了解视觉生理学的进化。