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: 1708455
• 负责人: Noa Pinter-Wollman
• 金额: $ 25.2万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-20 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1708455&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，但行为差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（这里称为关键个体）可能比所有其他个体对群体的集体行为产生更大的影响。例如，某些人可能领导一个团体、指导他人或充当信息或疾病的超级传播者。尽管关键个人对团队的成功具有潜在影响，但人们对这种影响如何以及为何出现的了解甚少。研究人员将使用可以在个人和群体层面轻松操纵和观察的社交蜘蛛来测试有关集体行为出现的假设，这些假设在更复杂的系统中无法轻易评估。除了该项目将产生的众多本科生和研究生研究项目外，拟议的工作还将转化为有关集体行为的实践活动，旨在通过已建立的成功的外展计划来教育 K-12 学生。旨在提高公众对无脊椎动物生物学知识的成人科学教育活动将包括公开讲座、媒体报道以及在实地工作发生的当地社区进行的对话。本研究旨在研究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群体中关键个体的存在的生态和进化后果。使用允许进行详细实验操作的模型系统，社会蜘蛛（Stegodyphus dumicola）将使研究人员能够开发出广泛的理论，以促进关键个体的科学进步。具体来说，这项工作将（1）测试关键个体是否在群体层面的过程（如猎物捕获和疾病传播）之间进行权衡，以及这些权衡如何改变群体在不同环境中的表现； （2）揭示关键个体对该领域集体行为发展影响的时间动态； (3) 阐明关键个体对其他群体成员的行为和集体结果的催化作用的行为机制； (4) 设计多功能的基于主体的模型，该模型将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、利用复杂的图像分析技术和社交网络理论以及计算模型进行分析来解决这些问题。 发布的数据集将上传到 Dryad 供其他人使用。