SG/LTREB Renewal: Spatiotemporal Fitness Variation and Avian Group Size

SG/LTREB 更新：时空适应性变化和鸟类群体规模

• 批准号: 1930803
• 负责人: Charles Brown
• 金额: $ 19.8万
• 依托单位: University of Tulsa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1930803&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SG; LTREB; Renewal; Spatiotemporal; Fitness

Many social animals live in groups of different sizes. Individuals often seem to survive or reproduce better in groups of particular sizes in a given year, and ecologists have thus been puzzled as to why groups with less successful sizes continue to exist. One possibility is that changes in ecological conditions such as food availability or the presence of parasites, and/or climatic conditions such as how wet a year is, lead to certain group sizes being most successful in some years or in some areas, but different ones being most successful in other circumstances. However, whether or not the advantages of different sized groups fluctuate in this way over the long term and across broad geographic areas is unknown. This can only be addressed with long-term research that measures the success of animals in different groups in different years and geographic regions. This research will address this by measuring the reproductive success of individuals of a social bird, the cliff swallow, which breeds in colonies ranging from 1 to 6000 nests. Cliff swallows are found throughout much of western North America and are one of the most highly social land birds in the world. The work is investigating whether the costs and benefits of particular colony sizes change regularly enough among years to explain the long-term persistence of variation in group size. This research involves undergraduate students and offers them intensive research experience and training in field ecology. Public outreach is conducted by giving annual lectures at the Swallows Day festival at Mission San Juan Capistrano in California, appearance on national media associated with that event, and maintenance of a web site about the research and cliff swallows generally. This proposal builds on a long-term study of a social bird, the cliff swallow, that lives in colonies of widely different sizes, and is investigating whether fluctuating selection on reproductive success can explain variation in group size. The data gathered will be applied to study annual reproductive success in colonies of different sizes from year to year. This is done by systematically collecting data on fledging success at up to 40 cliff swallow colonies each year. The work also focuses on the proximate ecological drivers of variation in reproductive success by examining the extent of ectoparasitism, breeding phenology, and other nest- and colony-based variables, allowing identification of climatic and other factors that lead to annual variation in reproductive success in different groups. The information gathered in this project, along with existing data on annual survival of breeding adults and first-year birds, will enable estimation of relative lifetime reproductive success of birds occupying different sized colonies. This study will allow better understanding of how group size affects fitness over the long term, assist in interpreting the extensive variation in group size that is characteristic of most social animals, reveal the potential influence of climatic variability on animal social behavior, and provide a test of the importance of fluctuating selection in generating and maintaining behavioral variation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

许多群居动物生活在不同大小的群体中。在特定的年份，个体似乎在特定规模的群体中存活或繁殖得更好，因此生态学家对为什么规模较小的群体继续存在感到困惑。一种可能性是，生态条件的变化，如食物的可获得性或寄生虫的存在，和/或气候条件，如一年的潮湿程度，导致某些群体规模在某些年份或某些地区最成功，但不同的群体规模在其他情况下最成功。然而，不同规模群体的优势是否会在长期和广泛的地理区域内以这种方式波动尚不清楚。这只能通过长期研究来解决，这些研究衡量了不同年份和不同地理区域不同群体中动物的成功程度。这项研究将通过测量群居鸟类悬崖燕子个体的繁殖成功来解决这个问题，悬崖燕子在1000到6000个巢的群体中繁殖。悬崖燕子分布在北美西部的大部分地区，是世界上最具社会性的陆地鸟类之一。这项工作正在调查特定群体规模的成本和收益是否在几年间有足够规律的变化，以解释群体规模变化的长期持久性。这项研究涉及本科生，并为他们提供了密集的野外生态学研究经验和培训。通过在加利福尼亚州圣胡安卡皮斯特拉诺使命的燕子节上发表年度演讲，在与该活动有关的国家媒体上露面，以及维护一个关于研究和一般悬崖燕子的网站，进行了公众宣传。这一建议建立在对群居鸟类悬崖燕子的长期研究基础上，这种燕子生活在大小迥异的群体中，正在调查繁殖成功的波动选择是否可以解释群体规模的变化。收集到的数据将用于研究每年不同大小的种群的年度繁殖成功。这是通过系统地收集每年多达40个悬崖燕子群体羽翼未丰的成功数据来完成的。这项工作还通过检查体外寄生的程度、繁殖物候和其他基于巢和群体的变量，重点研究繁殖成功率变化的最接近的生态驱动因素，从而能够识别导致不同群体生殖成功率年度变化的气候和其他因素。该项目收集的信息，以及繁殖成鸟和第一年鸟的年存活率的现有数据，将使人们能够估计占据不同大小群体的鸟类的相对终身繁殖成功。这项研究将有助于更好地理解群体规模如何长期影响健康，帮助解释大多数群居动物所特有的群体规模的广泛差异，揭示气候变化对动物社会行为的潜在影响，并测试波动选择在产生和维持行为差异方面的重要性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Group-size effects on virus prevalence depend on the presence of an invasive species

群体规模对病毒流行的影响取决于入侵物种的存在

• DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-03040-1
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
• 影响因子: 2.3
• 作者: Moore, Amy T.;O’Brien, Valerie A.;Brown, Charles R.
• 通讯作者: Brown, Charles R.

Birds of a Feather Flock Together: Extent of Long-Term Consistency of Colony-Size Choice in Cliff Swallows

物以类聚：悬崖燕子群体大小选择的长期一致性程度

• DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.860407
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
• 影响因子: 3
• 作者: Brown, Charles R.;Hannebaum, Stacey L.
• 通讯作者: Hannebaum, Stacey L.

A Bed Bug is Not as Bad Anymore to its Bird Host

臭虫对其寄主来说不再那么糟糕了

• DOI: 10.1002/bes2.1853
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
• 作者: Brown, Charles R.

Change in beak overhangs of cliff swallows over 40 years: Partly a response to parasites?

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263422
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: PloS one
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Wagnon GS;Pletcher OM;Brown CR
• 通讯作者: Brown CR

Smaller brained cliff swallows are more likely to die during harsh weather

大脑较小的悬崖燕子在恶劣天气下更容易死亡

• DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2020.0264
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Biology Letters
• 影响因子: 3.3
• 作者: Wagnon, Gigi S.;Brown, Charles R.
• 通讯作者: Brown, Charles R.