Effects of Climate-Change Associated Stressors on Fish Social Behaviours

群体生活是许多动物物种觅食、躲避捕食者、迁徙和繁殖的关键，但在管理环境变化的后果方面大多被忽视。鱼类经常被用作模式类群来研究动物的集体行为，以及环境应激源对体温的影响。它们占据着全球各地的水生栖息地，扮演着捕食者和猎物的关键角色，并表现出各种社会行为。PiKillen最近的研究表明，个体间能量代谢和运动能力的差异对于鱼类群体生活的成本和收益是重要的，并将个体动物的行为与群体行为联系起来。新陈代谢和社会行为之间的关系也表明，温度变化和低氧--水生环境中气候变化的两个后果--可能对群体生活产生深远影响。到目前为止，研究对气候变化的行为和生理反应的工作主要集中在孤立的动物身上，而没有探究个体层面的影响可能如何影响社会行为。相反，社会动态反馈如何影响表型和对环境变化的反应也是未知的。为了解决这些问题，拟议的项目将：(1)研究温度和低氧如何影响个体动物及其社会群体的行为之间的相互作用；(2)调查温度和低氧如何影响群体的形成和运作；以及(3)建立一个可应用于一系列环境条件和生态背景的群体行为的强大运动模型。通过采用创新的经验和理论方法，并结合实验室和现场的行为和生理学，该项目将首次研究气候变化带来的温度变化和缺氧将如何影响社会行为。

Group living is key to foraging, predator-avoidance, migration, and reproduction in many animal species but has been mostly overlooked in the context of managing the consequences of environmental change. Fishes are frequently used as model taxa to study collective behaviour in animals, and the effects of environmental stressors on ectotherms. They occupy aquatic habitats across the globe, play key roles as both predators and prey, and display a variety of social behaviours. Recent studies by PI Killen have demonstrated that among-individual variation in energy metabolism and locomotor capacity are important to costs and benefits of group-living in fishes, and link behaviour of individual animals to group behaviour. Relationships between metabolism and social behaviour also suggest that temperature change and hypoxia - two consequences of climate change in aquatic environments - may have profound effects on group living. To date, work examining behavioural and physiological responses to climate change has focussed on isolated animals, without inquiry into how effects at the individual level may affect social behaviour. Conversely, how social dynamics feedback to influence phenotypes and responses to environmental change is also unknown. To address these issues, the proposed project will: (1) examine how temperature and hypoxia affect interplay between behaviour of individual animals and their social group; (2) investigate how temperature and hypoxia influence group formation and functioning; and (3) produce a robust movement model of group behaviour that can be applied to a range of environmental conditions and ecological contexts. By adopting innovative empirical and theoretical approaches and combining behaviour and physiology in the lab and field, this project will be the first to examine how thermal shifts and hypoxia brought on by climate change will affect social behaviour.