From Individual Interactions to Evolutionary and Ecological Dynamics

开发能够捕捉生物系统复杂性的理论对于理解当前模式和预测未来轨迹至关重要。 该项目将开发一种新的理论方法，整合进化，生态和行为模型，以预测相互作用过程如何影响社会互动以及个体和群体水平的繁殖和生存模式。该理论将被用于研究生物学中的两个关键问题：合作与冲突的进化和生态学以及环境变化对野生种群的影响。这种综合方法在生物学中具有广泛的相关性，并更普遍地理解社会行为。研究生物如何对环境变化作出反应的理论也与保护和管理有关。 例如，我们现在知道商业渔业对野生种群的进化、行为和生态影响。然而，现有的模型无法预测这些动态如何相互作用，影响人口及其管理。 本科生，研究生和一名博士后研究员将接受培训，以使用和应用所产生的理论和模型。 为了超越学术界，展示理论在生物学和暑期实习中的作用的交互式计算机程序将被开发用于课后科学教育计划，该计划的目标是来自传统上在科学和工程领域代表性不足的群体的高中生。

Developing theory that captures the complexity of biological systems is essential for understanding current patterns and predicting future trajectories. This project will develop a novel theoretical approach that integrates models from evolution, ecology and behavior to predict how interacting processes affect social interactions and individual and population-level patterns of reproduction and survival. This theory will then be used to examine two key issues in biology: the evolution and ecology of cooperation and conflict and the effect of environmental change on wild populations.This integrative method has broad relevance within biology and for understanding social behavior more generally. Theory examining how organisms respond to environmental change is also relevant to conservation and management. For example, we now know that commercial fisheries have evolutionary, behavioral and ecological effects on wild populations. Yet, existing models cannot predict how these dynamics interact to affect populations and their management. Undergraduates, graduate students and one postdoctoral fellow will be trained to use and apply the resulting theory and models. To reach beyond academia, interactive computer programs demonstrating the role of theory in biology and summer internships will be developed for an after-school science education program that targets high school students from groups traditionally underrepresented in science and engineering.