RAPID: Impact of extreme heat-induced mortality on avian cooperative social systems

热浪、干旱和风暴等极端天气事件可能对当地生态系统产生可怕的后果，引发人口下降或范围转移。虽然生理和形态上的适应可能有助于缓冲动物对生态变化，很少有人知道如何社会性，这可以帮助动物科普不可预测的或恶劣的环境特性，可能会减轻（或加剧）突然的，长期的气候事件的后果。今年，南澳的野生动物遭受了持续的热浪，导致附近动物群落的死亡。该项目将利用收集的两种社会性鸟类-灿烂和紫背细尾莺-的社会行为的长期数据，询问社会群体成员身份是否可以改善极端环境压力下的生存结果。这项工作将有助于阐明不同的社会系统和社区将如何应对气候事件在未来捕捉人口范围和个人层面的反应，这种天气事件在两个社会物种具有不同程度的社会参与。 更广泛的影响将包括培训学生和博士后研究人员，并向更广泛的非科学界传播研究结果，以帮助普通受众了解极端天气事件如何影响动物的自然种群。澳大利亚最近经历了许多灾难性的干旱，热浪和火灾，导致热诱导的鸟类死亡事件，人口反应的评估可以提供洞察日益常见的极端气候事件对人口的影响。以前的工作集中在临界温度，人口和形态变化;没有工作涉及合作育种-与环境变化有关的行为。该项目将解决两个研究目标：1）确定是否差异生存发生相对于组的大小和2）确定灾难性死亡的影响，随后的社会结构和动态在两个不同的合作繁殖系统。灿烂和紫背细尾鹩莺的群体组成和繁殖成功率在2019年12月热浪来临前的几天进行了最后一次监测。该项目将包括在秋季进行一次调查，以评估生存和人口组成，并在繁殖前和繁殖季节进行第二次旅行，以评估人口变化对社会群体的力量和结构的影响。在每次旅行中，社会协会和个人的存在将通过重新审视个别独特的色带进行评估。未绑定的个人将被抓获并绑定，并评估他们在人口中的社会地位。这些方法将使2019年的社会行为与热事件的生存联系起来，并允许团队成员随后评估分散行为，群体结构，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.

Extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts, and storms can have dire consequences for local ecosystems, sparking population decline or range shifts. While physiological and morphological adaptations may help buffer animals against ecological shifts, little is known about how sociality—a trait which can help animals cope with unpredictable or harsh environments—might mitigate (or exacerbate) the consequences of abrupt, prolonged climatic events. This year, wildlife in South Australia were subject to extended heatwaves which resulted in mortality in nearby animal communities. This project will take advantage of long-term data collected on social behavior of two social species of birds - splendid and purple-backed fairywrens - to ask whether social group membership can improve survival outcomes following extreme environmental stressors. This work will help elucidate how different social systems and communities will respond to climatic events in the future by capturing both the population-wide and individual level response to this weather event in two social species with varying degrees of social participation. Broader impacts will include training of students and a post-doctoral researcher and dissemination of findings to the broader non-scientific community to help general audiences understand how extreme weather events impact natural populations of animals. Australia has recently experienced numerous catastrophic droughts, heat waves, and fires that have led to heat-induced avian mortality events where assessment of population responses could provide insight on the impact of increasingly common extreme climatic events on populations. Previous work has focused on critical temperature, demography, and morphological changes; no work has addressed cooperative breeding — a behavior linked to environmental variability. This project will address two research aims: 1) Determine whether differential survival occurred with respect to group size and 2) Determine the impact of catastrophic mortality on subsequent social structure and dynamics in two different cooperatively breeding systems. Group composition and reproductive success of both splendid and purple-backed fairywrens were last monitored in the days immediately prior to the December 2019 heatwave. This project will consist of a survey in autumn to assess survival and population composition, and a second trip spanning the pre-breeding and breeding seasons to assess the impact of demographic changes on the strength and structure of social groups. During each trip social associations and individual presence will be assessed through re-sighting of individually unique color bands. Unbanded individuals will be captured and banded, and their social status within the population assessed. These methods will allow 2019 social behavior to be linked to survival of the heat event, and allow team members to subsequently assess how dispersal behavior, group structure, and reproductive success in the 2020 breeding season is impacted by demographic changes.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.