DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Maintenance of Cooperative Nest Construction in Sociable Weavers (Philetairus Socius)

论文研究：群居织工（Philetairus Socius）合作筑巢的维护

• 批准号: 1210500
• 负责人: William Searcy
• 金额: $ 1.49万
• 依托单位: University of Miami
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-15 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1210500&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Maintenance; Cooperative; Nest

Although evolution by natural selection has often been depicted as favoring ruthless, selfish behavior, cooperation is actually widespread in nature. Consequently, the evolution of cooperative behavior has become a central problem in biology. The present research examines the evolution of a particular form of cooperation, cooperative nest building in an African bird. Communal nests represent a public goods dilemma: each individual benefits directly from the communal nest, but would benefit more if it could refrain from contributing to nest-building as long as others continued to maintain the nest. Such public goods dilemmas are common in human societies but have rarely been explored in non-human animals. This research will investigate cooperative nest construction behavior of a Namibian bird, the sociable weaver. Observations of nest construction in nature will examine relative contributions of the sexes and of individuals to test whether cooperation in this instance can be explained via kin selection. Simply, kin selection is a type of natural selection favoring aid to genetic relatives. An agent-based model will be used to further explore the possibility that cooperative nest building can be sustained through kin selection. The computer code used to implement the model will be made available to other scientists, thus facilitating future modeling efforts in social evolution.In addition, an experiment will test whether individuals that forego cooperative nest construction are punished by others; such punishment is a common explanation for contribution to public goods in human societies. Thus the research will test whether theories explaining contribution to public goods in human societies explain cooperation in this model system. The project will also contribute to the development of the next generation of scientists and engineers. The project includes undergraduate mentoring and training in genetic analyses and behavioral observation, thus providing useful research experience for the next generation of American scientists.

尽管自然选择的进化经常被描绘成偏爱无情、自私的行为，但合作实际上在自然界中是普遍存在的。因此，合作行为的进化已成为生物学的中心问题。这项研究考察了非洲鸟类中一种特殊的合作形式--合作筑巢的进化。共同筑巢代表着一种公共产品困境：每个个体都直接受益于共同筑巢，但只要其他人继续维持筑巢，它就不会对筑巢做出贡献，那么每个人都会受益更多。这种公共产品困境在人类社会中很常见，但很少有人在非人类动物身上进行探索。这项研究将调查一种纳米比亚鸟类的合作筑巢行为，这种鸟类是一种善于群居的编织者。对自然界筑巢的观察将检查性别和个体的相对贡献，以测试这种情况下的合作是否可以通过亲属选择来解释。简单地说，亲属选择是一种有利于帮助遗传亲属的自然选择。一个基于主体的模型将被用来进一步探索通过亲缘选择来维持合作筑巢的可能性。用于实现该模型的计算机代码将提供给其他科学家，从而促进未来在社会进化中的建模工作。此外，一项实验将测试放弃合作筑巢的个人是否会受到他人的惩罚；这种惩罚是对人类社会公共产品贡献的常见解释。因此，这项研究将检验解释人类社会对公共产品贡献的理论是否解释了这一模型系统中的合作。该项目还将有助于培养下一代科学家和工程师。该项目包括本科生在遗传分析和行为观察方面的指导和培训，从而为下一代美国科学家提供了有用的研究经验。