NSF PRFB 2022: A Bayesian framework for hierarchy: Do past experiences shape self-assessment of fighting ability?

NSF PRFB 2022：贝叶斯层次结构框架：过去的经历是否会影响战斗能力的自我评估？

• 批准号: 2209270
• 负责人: Ammon Perkes
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Perkes, Ammon
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2209270&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; PRFB; 2022; Bayesian; framework

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2022, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. By combining video tracking with molecular approaches, the fellow will assess the behavioral and genetic drivers of social dominance. Specifically, the fellow will test the effect of past social interactions on an individual’s decisions in future dominance contests, and how these individual behaviors drive the formation of group hierarchy. These experiments will establish a new framework for analyzing and predicting social behavior, increasing our understanding of what determines the structure of social networks across animal species. The fellowship will also support the mentoring of students at both the high school and undergraduate level to establish opportunities for participation in science research and computational analysis.During social contests, prior winning often increases the likelihood of future victories via the winner-effect, mediated by a shift in individual aggression in subsequent contests. Bayesian updating provides an excellent framework to model the internal processes which drive these changes in behavior. The observed increase in aggression following a win suggests that animals are updating their own expectations of the probability of victory in future contests. Bayesian models allow us to predict changes at multiple scales: from the short-term effect of single contest events on an individual to the outcome of long-term, repeated interactions among larger groups. The fellow will test whether the winner-effect is consistent with Bayesian updating, by performing two experiments that test the model’s predictions: First, by staging repeated contests with controlled outcomes, the fellow will test whether unexpected events (e.g. a win against a larger fish) drive a greater contrast in gene expression and behavior than changes following expected outcomes; second, by performing long-term behavioral tracking in controlled social environments, the fellow will test whether the stability of the winner-effect is dependent on access to new information. This work will be conducted using the Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa), a naturally clonal species, limiting individual variation in biological replicates and providing increased statistical power for testing the mechanisms of social dominance.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.

该行动资助了2022财年的NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，即调查基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训，以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。通过将视频跟踪与分子方法相结合，该研究员将评估社会优势的行为和遗传驱动因素。具体来说，研究员将测试过去的社会互动对个人在未来统治权竞争中的决定的影响，以及这些个人行为如何推动群体等级制度的形成。这些实验将建立一个分析和预测社会行为的新框架，增加我们对决定动物物种社交网络结构的因素的理解。该奖学金还将支持高中和本科阶段的学生的指导，以建立参与科学研究和计算分析的机会。在社会竞赛中，先前的胜利往往通过赢家效应增加未来胜利的可能性，并通过随后竞赛中个人攻击性的转变进行调解。贝叶斯更新提供了一个很好的框架来模拟驱动这些行为变化的内部过程。在获胜后观察到的攻击性增加表明，动物正在更新自己对未来比赛胜利概率的预期。贝叶斯模型使我们能够预测多个尺度的变化：从单个竞赛事件对个人的短期影响到更大群体之间长期重复互动的结果。该研究员将通过两个实验来测试赢家效应是否与贝叶斯更新一致，以测试模型的预测：首先，通过控制结果进行重复比赛，该研究员将测试意外事件是否（例如，战胜一条较大的鱼）在基因表达和行为上比预期结果后的变化产生更大的差异;第二，通过在受控的社会环境中进行长期的行为跟踪，研究员将测试赢家效应的稳定性是否取决于获得新信息。这项工作将使用亚马逊莫莉（Poecilia福尔摩沙），一种自然克隆物种，限制生物复制的个体差异，并为测试社会优势机制提供更大的统计能力。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。