DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Negotiations Over Offspring Care: A Test of Alternative Hypotheses Using the Clown Anemonefish

冲突是动物社会的一个普遍特征。当相互作用的个人的利益并不完全一致时，冲突就会出现，然而许多社会互动要求个人达成某种妥协。父母照顾是一种充满冲突的互动，因为父母双方都从将照顾负担转移到另一方中受益，但需要合作，因为父母双方都从照顾的总量中受益。父母之间冲突的结果是用经济博弈论模型模拟的，该模型假设个人的行为符合他们的最佳利益，但他们的最佳行为取决于其他人的行为。这个项目将建立在现有的经验和理论工作的基础上，以测试父母如何利用一个易处理的研究系统--小丑海葵鱼--来协商照顾的替代假设。尼莫。研究有爱心的父母之间的冲突是如何解决的，对于理解为什么动物，包括人类，形成这样的联盟至关重要。参与该项目的本科生将接受水族馆维护方面的培训，协助进行中的研究，并完成独立研究项目。该项目还将通过研究人员参加女童科学俱乐部以及与Mahonia Na Dari外地站的当地学校团体合作，鼓励代表人数不足的群体参与科学。结果将通过在国际科学会议上的演讲和开发“数据块”(http://datanuggets.org/))来广泛传播，以确保以一种能够增进公众理解的形式提供结果。双亲照料的存在提出了一个令人困惑的进化问题，因为当提供照料的成本和父母之间固有的利益冲突时，父母必须协调他们的行为来抚养后代。这个项目的目标是测试可信的替代假设，以确定控制父母如何协商为子女提供的护理数量的因素，并创建一个更普遍的框架来理解冲突的解决。研究人员将测试关于父母如何协商为子女提供关爱的数量的四种替代假设：H0)父母努力是固定的；H1)父母努力仅基于伴侣的努力进行谈判；H2)父母努力是在信息不对称的情况下谈判的；H3)父母的努力是在权力不对称的情况下谈判的；H4)父母的努力是以简单的互惠形式谈判的。实验将在巴布亚新几内亚的小丑海葵(Amphiprion Percula)自然种群中进行。通过补充食物资源，每个父母的努力将以非侵入性和生态相关的方式进行操纵。海葵系统允许同时测试不同的假设，而以前的研究只单独测试它们。此外，大多数协商研究都是在鸟类身上进行的，因此利用A.percula将检验理论预测的普遍性。总之，拟议的研究将使用易于处理的研究物种和严格的替代假设检验方法来确定影响谈判结果的因素。在结合教学、培训和学习的同时，这项研究将为研究冲突解决创造一个更一般的框架，并改变我们对子女照料谈判的理解。

Conflict is a pervasive feature of animal societies. Conflicts arise whenever the interests of interacting individuals are not wholly aligned, yet many social interactions require individuals to reach some compromise. Parental care is an interaction that is rife with conflict, because both parents benefit from shifting the burden of care to the other, yet requires cooperation, because both parents benefit from the total amount of care. The outcome of conflict between parents has been modeled using economic game theory models, which assume that individuals act in their best interest but that their optimal behavior depends on how others behave. This project will build on existing empirical and theoretical work to test alternative hypotheses for how parents negotiate care utilizing a tractable study system: the clown anemonefish a.k.a. Nemo. Studying how conflict among caring parents is resolved is critical to understanding why animals, including humans, form such alliances. Undergraduates involved in the project will receive training in aquarium maintenance, assist in ongoing research, and complete independent research projects. This project will also encourage participation of underrepresented groups in science through the researchers' participation in Science Club for Girls and through work with local school groups at the Mahonia Na Dari field station. The results will be broadly disseminated through presentations at international scientific meetings and development of "data nuggets" (http://datanuggets.org/) to ensure that results are available in a format that will enhance public understanding.The existence of biparental care poses a perplexing evolutionary question because parents must coordinate their behavior to raise offspring when there are costs to providing care and inherent conflicts of interest among parents. The objective of this project is to test plausible alternative hypotheses for the factors that govern how parents negotiate the amount of care to provide to their offspring, and create a more general framework for understanding conflict resolution. The researchers will test four alternative hypotheses for how parents negotiate the amount of care to provide to their offspring: H0) Parental effort is fixed; H1) Parental effort is negotiated based on partner effort alone; H2) Parental effort is negotiated with an information asymmetry; H3) Parental effort is negotiated with a power asymmetry; H4) Parental effort is negotiated with a simple form of reciprocity. Experiments will be conducted in a natural population of clown anemonefish (Amphiprion percula) in Papua New Guinea. By supplementing food resources, effort by each parent will be manipulated in a non-invasive and ecologically relevant manner. The anemonefish system allows tests of alternative hypotheses simultaneously, where previous studies have only tested them in isolation. Furthermore, the majority of negotiation studies have been conducted in birds, so utilizing A. percula will test the generality of theoretical predictions. In sum, the proposed research will use a tractable study species together with a rigorous alternative hypothesis testing approach to determine the factors that influence the outcome of negotiations. While incorporating teaching, training and learning, this research will create a more general framework for studying conflict resolution and revise our understanding of negotiations over offspring care.