Collaborative Research: The Effects of Keystone Individuals on Collective Behavior

合作研究：关键个体对集体行为的影响

• 批准号: 1626668
• 负责人: Jonathan Pruitt
• 金额: $ 32.16万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1626668&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Effects; Keystone; Individuals

The collective behavior of societies emerges from self-organized interactions among group members. Traditionally, group members have been thought of as identical individuals, but behavioral variation is prevalent in nature. This variation can be extreme and one group member, referred to here as the keystone individual, may have a greater impact on the collective behavior of a group than all other individuals. For example, some individuals may lead a group, tutor others or function as super-spreaders of information or disease. Despite the potential impact of keystone individuals on the success of a group, little is known about how and why this influence emerges. The investigators will use social spiders that can be easily manipulated and observed at the individual and group levels to test hypotheses about the emergence of collective behavior, hypotheses that cannot be easily evaluated in more complex systems. In addition to the numerous undergraduate and graduate research projects this project will generate, the proposed work will also be translated into hands-on activities about collective behavior geared towards the education of K-12 students though established and successful outreach programs. Adult science education activities to enhance public knowledge of invertebrate biology will include public lectures, media coverage, and conversations at local communities where the field work occurs. This research aims to examine the mechanisms by which keystone individuals affect collective behavior, the effects of keystones on the development of collective behaviors and the ecological and evolutionary consequences of the presence of keystone individuals in groups. Using a model system that allows for detailed experimental manipulations, the social spider (Stegodyphus dumicola), will allow the investigators to develop a broad theory to enhance the progress of science on keystone individuals. Specifically, this work will (1) test whether keystone individuals produce tradeoffs among colony-level processes such as prey capture and disease spread, and how these tradeoffs change colony performance in different environments; (2) uncover the temporal dynamics of the effects of keystone individuals on the development of collective behaviors in the field; (3) elucidate the behavioral mechanisms that underlie the catalytic effects of keystone individuals on the behavior of other group members and collective outcomes; and (4) design versatile agent-based models that will uncover the general mechanisms by which keystone individuals influence collective behaviors. The investigators will address these questions by combining lab and field experiments, analyzed with sophisticated image analysis technology and social network theory, with computational modeling. Published data sets will be uploaded for use by others to Dryad.

社会的集体行为源于群体成员之间的自组织互动。传统上，群体成员被认为是相同的个体，但行为变异在自然界中普遍存在。这种变化可能是极端的，一个群体成员，这里称为基石个体，可能比其他所有个体对群体的集体行为产生更大的影响。例如，有些人可能领导一个小组，辅导他人或充当信息或疾病的超级传播者。尽管关键人物对群体的成功有潜在的影响，但人们对这种影响如何以及为什么会出现却知之甚少。研究人员将使用社会蜘蛛，可以很容易地操纵和观察在个人和群体水平，以测试有关集体行为的出现，假设，不能很容易地评估在更复杂的系统。除了众多的本科生和研究生的研究项目，这个项目将产生，拟议的工作也将被转化为实践活动，对面向K-12学生的教育，通过建立和成功的推广计划集体行为。成人科学教育活动，以提高公众对无脊椎动物生物学的知识将包括公开讲座，媒体报道，并在当地社区的实地工作发生的对话。本研究旨在探讨关键个体影响集体行为的机制，关键个体对集体行为发展的影响，以及关键个体在群体中存在的生态和进化后果。使用一个模型系统，允许详细的实验操作，社会蜘蛛（Stegodyphus dumicola），将使研究人员能够开发一个广泛的理论，以促进科学的进步对基石个人。具体而言，这项工作将（1）测试关键个体是否在群体水平的过程（如猎物捕获和疾病传播）之间产生权衡，以及这些权衡如何改变群体在不同环境中的表现;（2）揭示关键个体对群体行为发展的影响的时间动态;（3）阐明关键个体对其他群体成员行为和集体结果的催化作用的行为机制;以及（4）设计通用的基于主体的模型，以揭示关键个体影响集体行为的一般机制。研究人员将通过结合实验室和现场实验来解决这些问题，这些实验用复杂的图像分析技术和社会网络理论进行分析，并使用计算建模。 已发布的数据集将被上传到Dryad供其他人使用。