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

冲突是动物社会普遍存在的特征。每当相互作用的个体的利益不完全一致时，冲突就会出现，然而许多社会互动需要个体达成某种妥协。父母的照顾是一种充满冲突的互动，因为父母双方都从把照顾的负担转移给另一方中受益，但也需要合作，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来建模的，该模型假设个人以自己的最佳利益行事，但他们的最佳行为取决于其他人的行为。该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于处理的研究系统（小丑海葵鱼，又名尼莫）来协商照顾的替代假设。研究关爱父母之间的冲突是如何解决的，对于理解包括人类在内的动物为什么会结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培训，协助正在进行的研究，并完成独立的研究项目。这个项目还将鼓励代表性不足的群体通过研究人员参加女孩科学俱乐部和通过与Mahonia Na Dari实地站的当地学校团体合作参与科学。研究结果将通过在国际科学会议上发表演讲和开发“数据块”（http://datanuggets.org/）的方式广泛传播，以确保以增进公众理解的形式提供研究结果。双亲抚养的存在提出了一个令人困惑的进化问题，因为父母必须协调他们的行为来抚养后代，当提供照顾的成本和父母之间固有的利益冲突时。这个项目的目的是测试一些貌似合理的假设，这些假设是关于决定父母如何协商照顾子女的数量的因素，并为理解冲突的解决创造一个更普遍的框架。研究人员将测试四种关于父母如何协商为子女提供多少照顾的假设：h)父母的努力是固定的；H1)父母的努力仅以伴侣的努力为基础进行协商；H2)父母努力与信息不对称协商；H3)亲代努力与权力不对称协商；父母的努力是以一种简单的互惠形式来协商的。实验将在巴布亚新几内亚的小丑海葵鱼（Amphiprion percula）的自然种群中进行。通过补充食物资源，每个亲本的努力将以一种非侵入性和生态相关的方式进行操纵。海葵鱼系统允许同时测试不同的假设，而以前的研究只能单独测试它们。此外，大多数谈判研究都是在鸟类身上进行的，因此利用刺甲可以测试理论预测的普遍性。总而言之，拟议的研究将使用可处理的研究物种以及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，本研究将为研究冲突解决创造一个更普遍的框架，并修改我们对后代照顾谈判的理解。

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.