Collaborative research: Comparative-developmental analysis of brain architecture in social wasps

社会行为的进化会影响大脑的大小：群居动物的大脑往往比独居动物的大脑大。该项目的目标是进一步了解物种社会结构的变化如何影响它们的大脑结构。这项研究将使用社会性昆虫——纸黄蜂——作为研究对象。所有种类的纸蜂都是群居的，但它们的群体大小不同，社会复杂程度不同，巢穴结构也不同。黄蜂大脑的不同解剖区域有不同的认知功能——一些区域负责视觉，其他区域负责嗅觉和触觉。研究人员将测量这些大脑区域的大小（体积），作为估计每个区域投入多少组织的一种方式，他们将测试物种社会行为的细节（例如，大群体与小群体）是否预测了每个大脑区域的相对大小。研究人员将利用黄蜂物种如何相互关联的信息来追踪大脑结构和行为之间联系的进化。通过比较具有不同行为特征的特定种类的纸黄蜂，研究人员将确定社会行为的哪些因素影响了每个大脑区域的投资。该项目还将探索黄蜂大脑未成熟发育的进化变化如何导致观察到的成年大脑区域投资模式。这项研究将进一步加深我们对社会复杂性变化如何影响大脑结构的理解，研究结果将表明哪些社会认知挑战会影响大脑不同区域的投资数量。这也将有助于我们理解成人大脑结构是如何在未成熟阶段发生的发育过程中产生的。该项目包括为两所大学的研究生和本科生提供就业和培训机会，并将促进大学之间的合作。它还涉及当地小学和国际外展和教育工作。

The evolution of social behavior can affect brain size: social species of animals tend to have larger brains than their solitary relatives. The goal of this project is to further our understanding of how changes in species' social structure can affect the architecture of their brains. The research will use social insects - paper wasps - as subjects. All species of paper wasps are social, but they show a wide range of colony sizes, they are diverse in social complexity, and they differ in nest architecture. Different anatomical regions of the wasp brain serve distinct cognitive functions - some regions are dedicated to vision, others to smell and touch. The researchers will measure the sizes (volumes) of these brain regions as a way of estimating how much tissue is invested in each region, and they will test whether the details of a species' social behavior (for example, large versus small colonies) predict the relative size of each brain region. The researchers will use information on how wasp species are related to each other to trace the evolution of associations between brain structure and behavior. By comparing selected species of paper wasps with different behavioral characteristics, the researchers will determine which elements of social behavior have impacted the investment in each brain region. The project will also explore how evolutionary changes in the immature development of the wasp brain have led to the observed patterns of adult brain region investment. The research will further our understanding of how changes in social complexity can influence brain architecture, and the findings will indicate which social cognitive challenges can affect the amount of investment in different brain regions. It will also contribute to our understanding of how adult brain architecture is generated by the developmental processes that occur during immature stages. The project includes employment and training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students at two universities, and it will foster collaboration across universities. It also involves both local elementary school and international outreach and education efforts.