EVOLUTION OF MATING SYSTEMS

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DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): This ADAHMA RSDA proposal is a request for a 5-year K02 renewal. The original funded K02 proposal described a research plan designed to evaluate the relationship of within family aggression, conflict, and cooperation to kinship asymmetries (from alternative reproductive tactics) and the relationship of these variables to parental allocation tactics and dispersal of offspring, variables that mediate social behavior in one species. The research will experimentally manipulate wild-living and laboratory populations of several model species. The current proposal is in three parts: Part 1 describes continuing experimental manipulations to evaluate both proximately and ultimately how aggression, paternal provisioning, and genetic parentage are related in eastern bluebirds, Sialia Sialis. Part 2 describes an experimental test of a new hypothesis that links social monogamy with multiple mating by females, which will be tested initially in three species of bluebirds (Sialia sp), and later several non cavity nesting thrushes and cavity nesting non thrushes. Part 3 will test in multiple species through collaborative research the evolutionary function of freely expressed female choice, specifically the hypothesis that freely expressed female choice increases the quality and viability of females' offspring. The specific aims of Part 1 are 1) to evaluate if male-male aggression during females' fertile periods currently functions to decrease the likelihood that females' broods will be sired by other than her territorial partner. 2) Mate guarding by males is a facultative response to behavioral variation of females or ecological circumstances that increase the likelihood that females mate with more than one male. 3) Paternal provisioning of nestlings varies facultatively as a function of the behavior of fertile females. The specific aims of Part 2 are to experimentally evaluate in three species of bluebirds the relationship of extra pair paternity, patterns of multiple mating by females, and variance in male reproductive success to intrinsic quality of females and the quality of the environments females are in. The specific aims of Part 3 are to evaluate the effects of free female choice on the quality and viability of offspring in a number of species. Further research development plans include national and international collaborations with scientists whose technical skills or knowledge of particular species will enhance the achievement of the research aims. The candidate's mentoring activities focus not only on students and postdoctoral scientists in ecology, genetics, and zoology, but notably on undergraduate and graduate students in Womens' Studies - a group with individuals often antagonistic towards science. She encourages students and others to understand the significant and important sources of overlap in concerns, methods, and outcomes of evolutionary biology and feminism. She will continue her outreach to women and minority students in a variety of ways.