LTREB/SG: Spatiotemporal fitness variation and avian group size

LTREB/SG：时空适应性变化和鸟类群体规模

• 批准号: 1453971
• 负责人: Charles Brown
• 金额: $ 14.84万
• 依托单位: University of Tulsa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-04-15 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1453971&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: LTREB; SG; Spatiotemporal; fitness; variation

Many social organisms live in groups of variable size. Group size has many important consequences, such as affecting the spread and transmission of infectious diseases both within the group and to members of other groups. This project seeks to understand why groups of variable size persist over long-term time scales. As we better understand what promotes variability in group size, we can better predict the extent to which the costs or benefits of group living will change over time. One popular but untested hypothesis is that climatic differences between years cause variation in food supply or in populations of parasites and pathogens, and this in turn causes the payoffs of different group sizes to vary annually. This project builds on a long-term study of a social bird, the cliff swallow, which lives in colonies of widely different sizes, and seeks to investigate whether changing selection on the animals' survival and reproductive success can explain annual variation in group size. The research addresses one of the most fundamental questions in evolutionary ecology. This project will test the prediction that success of individuals will increase with group size in some years, decrease with group size in others, and remain unchanged in yet other years. It will be determined to what degree the birds' annual nesting success varies from year to year in colonies of different sizes. This will be investigated by systematically collecting data at 20-25 colonies each year. The work will determine the causes of variation in reproductive success by measuring the extent of parasite infestation, time of breeding, bird condition, and other factors. This study will promote better understanding of how group size affects individuals' lifetime reproductive success across long-term time scales, assist in interpreting the extensive variation in group size that is characteristic of many organisms, and reveal the potential influence of recent climatic changes on social behavior. The research will involve women, Native Americans, and students from the Great Plains, promoting STEM training of underrepresented groups with respect to gender, ethnicity, and geographic region.

许多社会有机体生活在不同大小的群体中。 群体的大小有许多重要的后果，例如影响传染病在群体内和向其他群体成员的传播和传播。 这个项目旨在了解为什么不同规模的群体在长期的时间尺度上持续存在。 随着我们更好地理解是什么促使群体规模的变化，我们可以更好地预测群体生活的成本或收益随时间变化的程度。 一个流行但未经检验的假设是，不同年份之间的气候差异会导致食物供应或寄生虫和病原体数量的变化，这反过来又会导致不同群体规模的收益每年变化。该项目建立在对一种社会性鸟类悬崖燕的长期研究的基础上，悬崖燕生活在大小差异很大的群体中，并试图调查对动物生存和繁殖成功的选择是否可以解释群体大小的年度变化。 这项研究解决了进化生态学中最基本的问题之一。 这个项目将测试预测，个人的成功将在某些年份随着群体规模的增加而增加，在其他年份随着群体规模的减少而减少，在其他年份保持不变。 这将决定在不同规模的群体中，鸟类每年筑巢成功的程度每年都有不同。 这将通过每年系统收集20-25个菌落的数据进行研究。 这项工作将通过测量寄生虫感染的程度、繁殖时间、鸟类状况和其他因素来确定繁殖成功率变化的原因。这项研究将促进更好地了解群体规模如何影响个人的一生生殖成功跨越长期的时间尺度，帮助解释群体规模的广泛变化，这是许多生物体的特征，并揭示近期气候变化对社会行为的潜在影响。该研究将涉及妇女，美洲原住民和来自大平原的学生，促进在性别，种族和地理区域方面代表性不足的群体的STEM培训。