DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Enforcement of cooperation in vampire bats

论文研究：在吸血蝙蝠方面加强合作

• 批准号: 1311336
• 负责人: Gerald Wilkinson
• 金额: $ 1.97万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-01 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1311336&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Enforcement; cooperation; vampire

Social cooperation can be exploited and eroded by freeloading, which occurs when some individuals receive help from others at no expense to themselves. Natural selection is expected to favor social organisms that cooperate in ways that prevent such freeloading. Most commonly, altruistic traits become protected from freeloading and self-perpetuating because they help relatives, who also inherit and pass along those same altruistic traits. For cooperation between non-relatives, organisms can potentially prevent freeloading by increasing investment in partnerships that yield returns while decreasing investment in partnerships that are less beneficial. This project uses food sharing in common vampire bats as a model cooperation system to test if and how freeloading is prevented. Female vampire bats will voluntarily regurgitate portions of their own meals to feed hungry roost-mates. This seemingly altruistic behavior occurs among related and nonrelated individuals, is inducible, and is measurable under controlled settings without training. Bats will accept and reject food-sharing partners within a group, which provides a way to test the effects of genetic similarity, familiarity, and reciprocity on cooperative decisions. Through a series of experiments on captive animals this project will address three questions about how vampire bats enforce social cooperation. First, can vampire bats discriminate kin from non-kin using vocalizations? Second, will vampire bats exert social partner choice by preferentially helping partners that reciprocated more than others? Third, in the absence of partner choice, will vampire bats exert social partner control by reducing investments in partners that reciprocate less over time? The project will train undergraduate and graduate students and support several outreach activities, including presentations at academic and public forums. Studying the mechanisms underlying cooperation in nonhuman animals has potential to provide new insight into the origins of human social behavior.

社会合作可能会被“吃白食”所利用和侵蚀，“吃白食”指的是一些人在不牺牲自己的情况下接受他人的帮助。自然选择预计将有利于那些以防止这种“吃白食”的方式合作的社会有机体。最常见的情况是，利他主义的特质之所以能避免吃白食和自我延续，是因为它们帮助了那些也继承并传递了同样利他主义特质的亲戚。对于非亲属之间的合作，生物体可以通过增加对产生回报的伙伴关系的投资，同时减少对不太有益的伙伴关系的投资，从而潜在地防止吃白食。本项目以普通吸血蝙蝠的食物共享作为合作系统的模型，以检验是否以及如何防止“吃白食”。雌性吸血蝙蝠会自愿将自己的部分食物反刍给饥饿的同伴。这种看似利他的行为发生在相关和非相关的个体之间，是可诱导的，并且在没有训练的受控环境下是可测量的。蝙蝠会接受和拒绝群体内的食物共享伙伴，这为测试基因相似性、熟悉度和互惠对合作决策的影响提供了一种方法。通过对圈养动物的一系列实验，该项目将解决吸血蝙蝠如何加强社会合作的三个问题。首先，吸血蝙蝠能通过发声区分近亲和非近亲吗？第二，吸血蝙蝠是否会通过优先帮助回报更多的伴侣来发挥社会伴侣选择？第三，在没有伴侣选择的情况下，吸血蝙蝠是否会通过减少对伴侣的投资来施加社会伴侣控制？该项目将培训本科生和研究生，并支持几项外联活动，包括在学术和公共论坛上发表演讲。研究非人类动物的合作机制有可能为人类社会行为的起源提供新的见解。