Conference: Spatio-Temporal Dynamics in Communication: A Workshop and Symposium at Consecutive SICB Meetings, 2020 in Austin, TX and 2021 in Washington, D.C.

动物在空间和时间中的位置决定了它收集周围世界信息的能力。这些“时空”问题对于相互交流的动物特别重要：发送者和接收者在一段时间内的相对位置有助于优化信息交换或阻碍信息交换。其中一个关键原因是感觉系统和刺激它们的信号往往具有很强的方向性。以雄性宽尾蜂鸟的求偶表演为例，其中包括戏剧性的高速俯冲，巨大的羽毛发出的声音，以及令人惊叹的闪亮的虹彩喉咙。为了对未来的配偶产生最大的影响，雄性必须完美地安排时间和放置这些元素，并以毫秒和毫米的精度协调。如果他的羽毛与太阳和栖息地的关系不是恰到好处，他的洋红色闪光就不会完全熄灭。而雌性一定是直视着他。如果他在她的眼角，她可能会错过大部分节目。但是，参与者是如何协调这种时空动态的呢？在影响沟通和相关决策成功的方式上，个人驾驭空间和时间的能力是否有所不同？换句话说，动物交流的这一方面可能如何以及为什么会演变？这些看似简单的问题的答案需要整合多个科学领域的见解，包括神经科学、认知生态学、生物力学、感觉生态学、计算机科学、进化生物学、动物行为和哲学。这种整合虽然具有挑战性，但有望开辟令人兴奋的新调查途径，应该会在这些领域和其他领域带来红利。这个研讨会和研讨会系列将把来自不同领域的研究人员聚集在一起，开始解决这些问题和其他问题，以更好地了解信号传递如何受到时间和位置的影响。将招募来自代表性不足群体的早期职业和研究人员参与所有步骤，以扩大这项工作的研究过程和受众。组织团队将协调在综合与比较生物学学会连续年会上主办的研讨会和研讨会，将来自这些不同学科的研究人员聚集在一起，讨论跨学科方法和新的跨学科范式，以研究动物交流中的时空动力学。最初为期一天的研讨会将与早期职业研究人员合作，邀请教师组成跨学科集群，讨论主要挑战、关键知识差距和需要的研究边界(如果跨学科串扰增加)。然后，这些工作分组将确定一个有利可图的专题，以便在今后12个月内进一步研究，并在这些工作中提出一份专题介绍和(或)工作文件。后续研讨会将在三个主题会议上展示研讨会产品和尖端研究。其中一堂课将从神经生物学、认知和哲学的角度讨论复杂信号的接收器编码。本课程将讨论信号时空动力学的变化如何影响注意力、习惯化、学习、本地化和场景分析。第二次会议将考虑生物力学、神经生理学和生态方面对显示器生产的限制，演讲既涉及显示器性能，又将显示器有效地引导到合适的接收器。第三个会议将集中于机器学习和社交网络工具的开发，以表征时空动力学，因为在二元交互中检查相对简单的显示的常见方法不能捕获复杂通信网络中相关的全部特征。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。

An animal’s position in space and time determines its ability to collect information about the world around it. These ‘spatio-temporal’ concerns are of particular importance to animals engaged in communication with each other: the relative positioning of sender and receiver over time can help to optimize information exchange or hamper it. One key reason for this is that sensory systems and the signals that stimulate them are often highly directional. Take, for example, the courtship display of the male broad-tailed hummingbird, which involves a dramatic high-speed dive, a loud feather-generated sound, and a stunning flash of his iridescent throat. For maximum effect on a prospective mate, the male must time and place these elements of his display perfectly, coordinated with millisecond and millimeter precision. If he doesn’t align his feathers just right in relation to the sun and her perch, his magenta flash doesn’t quite go off. And the female must be looking directly at him. If he’s in the corner of her eye, she may miss most of the show. But how are such spatio-temporal dynamics coordinated by those involved? And do individuals differ in their ability to navigate space and time in ways that impact their success in communication and associated decision-making? In other words, how and why might this aspect of animal communication evolve? Answers to these deceptively simple questions require integration of insights from a number of scientific fields, including neuroscience, cognitive ecology, biomechanics, sensory ecology, computer science, evolutionary biology, animal behavior, and philosophy. Such integration, although challenging, promises to open exciting new avenues of inquiry that should pay dividends across these fields and beyond. This workshop and symposium series will bring researchers from various field together to begin addressing these questions and others to better understand how signaling is impacted by time and position. Early career and researchers from underrepresented groups will be recruited to participate at all steps to broaden the investigative process and audience for this work.The organizing team will coordinate a workshop and symposium, hosted at consecutive annual meetings of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, to draw together researchers from these different disciplines in discussions about interdisciplinary approaches and novel transdisciplinary paradigms for investigating spatio-temporal dynamics in animal communication. The initial, one-day workshop will partner early career researchers with interdisciplinary clusters of invited faculty to discuss major challenges, key knowledge gaps, and research boundaries in need if increased interdisciplinary crosstalk. These working clusters will then identify a profitable topic for further study in the subsequent 12 months, with a presentation and/or working paper to emerge from such efforts. The follow-up symposium will showcase workshop products alongside cutting edge research in three thematic sessions. One session will address receiver encoding of complex signals from neurobiological, cognitive, and philosophical perspectives. Talks in this session will address how variation in signal spatio-temporal dynamics impact attention, habituation, learning, localization, and scene analysis. The second session will consider biomechanical, neurophysiological, and ecological constraints on display production, with talks addressing both display performance as well as directing displays effectively toward appropriate receivers. The third session will focus on machine learning and social network tool development to characterize spatio-temporal dynamics, as common methods for examining relatively simple displays in dyadic interactions do not capture the full range of features relevant in complex communication networks.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.