IOS: Conference Proposal: Sending and Receiving Signals - Endocrine Modulation of Social Communication

该奖项支持计划在华盛顿特区举行的综合与比较生物学学会(SICB)年会上举行的题为“发送和接收信号：社会交流的内分泌调节”的会议。动物交流对生存、繁殖和物种的持久性至关重要，但人们对个体的感觉和信号能力如何根据其内部荷尔蒙状态发生变化知之甚少。本次研讨会汇聚了在不同动物和感官系统的这一主题的研究前沿工作的不同专家，通过演讲传播尖端研究，促进讨论，并开发新的未来研究方向。研讨会将评估该领域的当前和未来状态，并探索进化压力的潜力，以影响动物在不同行为背景下如何相互交流。这些会议报告的结果将通过出版物和社交媒体广泛传播，并将成为学生的开创性教育资源。该奖项将通过支持和为代表不足的少数群体和早期职业研究人员提供机会，展示他们的科学并帮助指导研究领域的未来，从而扩大参与。这些集体成果还具有广泛的社会影响，涉及生物多样性和物种对全球气候变化的反应，以及下一代科学家的职业发展机会。本次会议研讨会将探讨在社会背景下发送和接收感官信息如何受到个人生殖和荷尔蒙状态的深刻影响。虽然这在循环进出繁殖条件的物种中特别相关，但许多关于不同生物水平上的动物交流的研究并没有考虑到对行为的潜在调节影响。这次会议研讨会将通过整合神经科学、内分泌学、动物行为学、生物力学、感觉生态学和进化论的方法来解决这一主要的知识鸿沟。这种整合不仅对在这一领域取得实质性进展至关重要，而且也是及时的。通过让不同领域的研究人员意识到这种对不同动物类群、不同感觉通道和不同社会背景之间交流的调制影响，它将启发新的研究方向，并提出新的科学问题和方法来推动该领域的发展。考虑交际中的调制对于准确解释研究结论是至关重要的，这使得这个话题对于知识的进步和未来假设检验的发展至关重要。从这些关于感觉可塑性的演讲和讨论中获得的见解有可能从根本上改变目前对感觉功能和动物交流的看法，并将使研究人员能够在未来解决与性选择、物种形成、信号系统、共同进化和生理机制相关的更集中的比较和进化问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports a conference symposium entitled “Sending and Receiving Signals: Endocrine Modulation of Social Communication” scheduled to occur in Washington D.C. at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB). Animal communication is vital to survival, reproduction, and species persistence, but little is known about how an individual’s sensory and signaling abilities may change based on their internal hormonal state. This symposium brings together diverse experts working at the frontiers of research on this topic in various animals and sensory systems to disseminate cutting-edge research via presentations, promote discussion, and develop novel future research directions. The symposium will assess the current and future state of the field and explore the potential for evolutionary pressures to influence how animals communicate with each other in different behavioral contexts. Outcomes of these conference presentations will be disseminated broadly via publications, social media, and will represent seminal educational resources for students. The award will broaden participation by supporting and providing opportunities for underrepresented minorities and early career researchers to present their science and help direct the future of the research field. The collective outcomes also bear broad societal implications relevant to biodiversity and species’ responses to global climate change, as well as professional development opportunities for the next generation of scientists.This conference symposium will explore how sending and receiving sensory information in social contexts can be profoundly influenced by an individual’s reproductive and hormonal state. While this is particularly relevant in species that cycle in and out of breeding condition, many studies on animal communication at different biological levels do not consider potential modulatory influences on behaviors. This conference symposium will address this major knowledge gap through the integration of approaches from neuroscience, endocrinology, animal behavior, biomechanics, sensory ecology, and evolution. Such integration is not only critical to making substantive advances in this area, it is also timely. By making researchers in diverse fields aware of this modulatory influence on communication across different animal taxa, various sensory channels, and distinct social contexts, it will inspire new research directions and formulation of novel scientific questions and approaches to advance the field. Considering modulation in communication is critical to accurate interpretations of study conclusions, making this topic crucial for advancement of knowledge and development of future hypothesis testing. Insights gained from these presentations and discussions on sensory plasticity have the potential to fundamentally change current thinking about sensory function and animal communication and will allow researchers to address more focused comparative and evolutionary questions related to sexual selection, speciation, signaling systems, co-evolution, and physiological mechanisms in the future.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.