Quantitative genetics of behaviour: cooperative breeding and lifetime fitness

行为的数量遗传学：合作育种和终生健康

• 批准号: NE/I021748/1
• 负责人: Hannah Dugdale
• 金额: $ 36.03万
• 依托单位: University of Sheffield
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FI021748%2F1
• 关键词: Quantitative; genetics; behaviour; cooperative; breeding

Why are some individuals more helpful than others? Why do some individuals settle close to their parents when others disperse? At first these appear to be extremely complex questions, given that we don't know whether behaviour is culturally or genetically inherited, or whether the context in which it is expressed matters. We inherit our genes from our parents and they inherit them from their parents. By building a family tree and looking at how the behaviours of family members are more similar than behaviours of unrelated individuals, we can discover the inherited contribution to these behaviours. We can then look at the benefits of these behaviours, and begin to understand why these behaviours have evolved in the way that they have. It is also very important to consider the situation or environment in which we express behaviour. We might stop to help someone who is lost on a sunny day, but not when it's pouring with rain; equally the people around us may influence our decision. Situations or environments clearly have the ability to influence our behaviour. If our behaviour influences our survival or breeding success (e.g. we get pneumonia helping someone when it's raining), and this behaviour (tendency to help) is inherited, then the environment has the ability to influence which behaviours evolve. Evolution is the result of selection; selection is the process that leads to the survival of successful behaviours. Individuals evolve behaviour that maximises their success in the conditions they experience; however, the environment or individuals that we interact with are constantly varying or changing, over time and space, and individuals must have a range of flexible behaviours to allow them to respond. Environmental or social factors can therefore influence the way in which our behaviour evolves. It is important to study how environmental and social variation influences behaviours in natural populations so that we understand how behaviour evolves and what maintains the diversity of behavioural strategies that occur. I will use recent analytical developments to explore which behaviours are inherited and how the environment and context in which behaviours are expressed influences this. I will investigate this in two natural populations of birds that represent the most detailed long-term genetic data sets of avian cooperative breeders. Cooperative breeding occurs in many fish, insects, birds and mammals (e.g. Meerkat Manor). I will investigate whether individuals differ in their cooperative-breeding behaviour and whether these differences are heritable; for example, I will quantify how much of the variation in tendency to help is genetic. I will then examine how the environment and social interactions influence behaviours. My two study species live in family groups on territories. Some territories are better than others, the weather is better in some years than others, and territories contain different individuals. I will ask how this environmental and social variation affects the expression of behaviours. By exploring how the environment and social surroundings influence evolutionary dynamics in these wild cooperative-breeding systems, I will gain insights into the genetic basis of behaviours that are likely to be similar in other cooperative species such as humans. This will improve our understanding of the degree to which individuals can adapt to environmental variability and change, crucial to species of conservation concern (e.g. one of my study species) in these times of accelerated anthropogenic change. Finally, I will assess the foundations on which our understanding of the evolution of social behaviour is based. I will do this by developing theoretical models, using precise fitness estimates from a closed population, to investigate the performance of fitness measures. This will have widespread relevance to cooperative breeding and evolutionary biology studies in general.

为什么有些人比其他人更有帮助？为什么有些人定居在父母附近，而另一些人则分散？乍一看，这些问题似乎极其复杂，因为我们不知道行为是否是文化遗传或基因遗传，也不知道行为表达的背景是否重要。我们从父母那里继承了基因，他们也从他们的父母那里继承了基因。通过建立家谱并观察家庭成员的行为如何比无关个体的行为更相似，我们可以发现遗传对这些行为的贡献。然后我们可以看看这些行为的好处，并开始理解为什么这些行为会以它们的方式进化。考虑我们表达行为的情况或环境也非常重要。我们可能会在阳光明媚的日子停下来帮助迷路的人，但在倾盆大雨的时候就不会；同样，我们周围的人也可能影响我们的决定。情况或环境显然有能力影响我们的行为。如果我们的行为影响我们的生存或繁殖成功（例如，我们在下雨时帮助别人而患上肺炎），并且这种行为（帮助的倾向）是遗传的，那么环境就有能力影响哪些行为的演变。进化是选择的结果；选择是导致成功行为得以生存的过程。个人会进化出能够在他们所经历的条件下最大限度地取得成功的行为；然而，我们互动的环境或个人会随着时间和空间的变化而不断变化，个人必须有一系列灵活的行为才能做出反应。因此，环境或社会因素会影响我们行为的演变方式。研究环境和社会变化如何影响自然群体的行为非常重要，这样我们才能了解行为如何演变以及是什么维持了行为策略的多样性。我将利用最近的分析进展来探讨哪些行为是遗传的，以及行为表达的环境和背景如何影响这一点。我将在两个自然鸟类种群中对此进行调查，它们代表了鸟类合作饲养者最详细的长期遗传数据集。许多鱼类、昆虫、鸟类和哺乳动物都进行合作繁殖（例如猫鼬庄园）。我将调查个体的合作繁殖行为是否存在差异，以及这些差异是否可以遗传；例如，我将量化助人倾向的差异有多少是遗传因素造成的。然后我将研究环境和社会互动如何影响行为。我的两个研究物种生活在领地上的家庭群体中。有些领土比其他领土更好，某些年份的天气比其他年份好，并且领土包含不同的个体。我会问这种环境和社会变化如何影响行为的表达。通过探索环境和社会环境如何影响这些野生合作繁殖系统的进化动态，我将深入了解其他合作物种（例如人类）的行为的遗传基础。这将提高我们对个体适应环境变异和变化的程度的理解，这对于在人为变化加速的时代保护关注的物种（例如我的研究物种之一）至关重要。最后，我将评估我们对社会行为进化的理解的基础。我将通过开发理论模型，使用封闭人群的精确适应度估计来研究适应度测量的性能来做到这一点。这通常与合作育种和进化生物学研究具有广泛的相关性。

项目成果

Lifetime reproductive benefits of cooperative polygamy vary for males and females in the acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus).

合作一夫多妻制的终生生殖益处因橡子啄木鸟（Melanerpes fomicivorus）而变化。

• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0579
• 发表时间: 2021-08-25
• 期刊: Proceedings. Biological sciences
• 作者: Barve S;Riehl C;Walters EL;Haydock J;Dugdale HL;Koenig WD
• 通讯作者: Koenig WD

Testing the environmental buffering hypothesis of cooperative breeding in the Seychelles warbler

• DOI: 10.1007/s10211-022-00408-y
• 发表时间: 2023-01-13
• 期刊: ACTA ETHOLOGICA
• 影响因子: 1.1
• 作者: Borger，Mirjam J.;Richardson，David S.;Komdeur，Jan
• 通讯作者: Komdeur，Jan

Hematocrit, age, and survival in a wild vertebrate population.

• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7015
• 发表时间: 2021-01
• 期刊: Ecology and evolution
• 影响因子: 2.6
• 作者: Brown TJ;Hammers M;Taylor M;Dugdale HL;Komdeur J;Richardson DS
• 通讯作者: Richardson DS

Neighbouring-group composition and within-group relatedness drive extra-group paternity rate in the European badger (Meles meles).

• DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12473
• 发表时间: 2014-10
• 期刊: Journal of evolutionary biology
• 影响因子: 2.1
• 作者: Annavi G;Newman C;Dugdale HL;Buesching CD;Sin YW;Burke T;Macdonald DW
• 通讯作者: Macdonald DW

Seychelles warblers with silver spoons: Juvenile body mass is a lifelong predictor of annual survival, but not annual reproduction or senescence.

• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9049
• 发表时间: 2022-07
• 期刊: ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
• 影响因子: 2.6
• 作者: Brown, Thomas J.;Dugdale, Hannah L.;Hammers, Martijn;Komdeur, Jan;Richardson, David S.
• 通讯作者: Richardson, David S.