Testing hypotheses of social priming in females

摘要：男性之间的社会竞争被认为会引发一系列协调的行为和生理反应，以适应竞争中的持续成功。尽管越来越多的证据表明，雌性之间的竞争在动物王国中广泛存在，而且是有益的，但这些过程在雌性身上是如何运作的，目前还远不清楚。这项研究将确定社会竞争是否以及如何为女性未来的竞争“启动”（或适应性准备）。主题是一种筑巢的雌性鸣禽，树燕，来自竞争对手的社会挑战对其生存和繁殖构成了非常现实的威胁。本研究将利用在野外产生竞争的实验操作，探讨社会竞争如何改变雌性的攻击性、母性照顾和免疫功能，包括连接多个生物组织水平的工具和方法，从基因表达到行为和生理，再到生殖适应性。对女性攻击性的研究是向科学领域的女性和女孩伸出援助之手的一个极好的平台，这将在印第安纳大学校园附近的几个社区组织的实践模块中得到强调，重点是洞巢鸟类的困境以及栖息地丧失对它们行为的影响。交互式数据记录巢盒的开发是这些工作的突出特点。该项目还将为本科生提供独特的动物行为学培训，包括野外、实验室和编程技能、公共演讲、伦理和批判性思维。培训的主要途径是夏季本科生研究项目，目标是在科学领域代表性不足的群体。技术摘要：本研究的总体目标是确定社会挑战如何使女性为未来的社会不稳定做好准备，特别是大脑和外周如何在表型和转录组反应中协调一致。目前的假设是，社会挑战为雌性在未来的竞争中取得成功做好了准备，以牺牲养育和自我维持为代价，倾向于更大的攻击性，这些影响是通过特定G蛋白偶联受体信号系统的组织水平变化来协调的，而这些变化对雌性来说不像雄性典型的社会调节睾酮那样昂贵。利用在野外产生真正的社会不稳定的实验操作，本研究将(1)量化社会不稳定如何改变攻击性和母性护理，(2)量化社会环境如何影响炎症功能，作为在竞争中可能相关的免疫系统准备程度的综合衡量标准，以及(3)识别并实验干扰神经和外周组织中的社会敏感基因网络。包括一个组织，可以重新采样，而不需要安乐死（血液）。因此，这项研究是生物生物学预测对各种环境挑战的反应的重要一步，它将促进功能与机制相结合的广泛适用的行为可塑性模型的发展。全生物体方法将允许对表型和基因组灵活性的新视角，其中通过联合考虑大脑和外周获得的见解尚未完全实现。这些研究为理解生物体对生态相关行为挑战的反应机制、表型后果和适应性意义提供了一个难得的机会。

Non-technical Abstract:Social competition among males is thought to induce a coordinated set of behavioral and physiological responses that are adaptive for continued success during competition. It is far less clear how these processes operate in females, despite emerging evidence that female competition is widespread and beneficial in the animal kingdom. This research will identify whether and how social competition "primes" (or adaptively prepares) females for future competition. The subject is a cavity-nesting female songbird, the tree swallow, for which social challenges from rivals pose a very real threat to survival and reproduction. Using experimental manipulations that generate competition in the wild, this research will investigate how social competition alters female aggression, maternal care, and immune function, including tools and approaches that connect multiple levels of biological organization, from gene expression, to behavior and physiology, to reproductive fitness. Research on female aggression is an excellent platform for outreach to women and girls in science, and this will be highlighted in hands-on modules for several community organizations near Indiana University's campus, with an emphasis on the plight of cavity nesting birds and the effects of habitat loss on their behavior. The development of an interactive data-logging nestbox features prominently in these efforts. This project will also provide unique training for undergraduates in animal behavior, including field, lab, and programming skills, public speaking, ethics, and critical thinking. The primary avenue for training is a summer undergraduate research program that targets groups underrepresented in the sciences. Technical Abstract:The overall goal of this research is to determine how social challenges prepare females for future social instability, particularly how brain and periphery are coordinated in their phenotypic and transcriptomic responses. The working hypotheses are that social challenges prime females for success in future competition, favoring greater aggression at the expense of parenting and self-maintenance, and that these effects are coordinated by tissue-level changes in specific G protein-coupled receptor signaling systems that are not as costly to females as the male-typical social modulation of testosterone. Using experimental manipulations that generate true social instability in the wild, this research will (1) quantify how social instability alters aggression and maternal care, (2) quantify how the social environment affects inflammatory function, as an integrated measure of immune system readiness that may be relevant during competition, and (3) identify and experimentally perturb socially sensitive gene networks in neural and peripheral tissues, including one tissue that can be re-sampled without euthanasia (blood). This research is therefore an essential step in organismal biology's goal of predicting responses to diverse environmental challenges, and it will advance the development of broadly applicable models of behavioral plasticity that integrate function with mechanism. A whole-organism approach will allow new perspectives on phenotypic and genomic flexibility, where insights to be gained by joint consideration of brain and periphery have yet to be fully realized. These studies offer an extraordinary opportunity for substantive advances in understanding the mechanisms, phenotypic consequences, and adaptive significance of organismal responses to ecologically relevant behavioral challenges.