The social lives of rabbits: understanding the structure and consequences of sociality (ref: 4611)

项目背景最近的研究发现，包括人类在内的几个物种的社会结构和健康之间存在联系。然而，社会结构影响健康的途径在很大程度上仍然未知。提出了几项建议：例如，人脉广的人可以更好地了解有益的社会信息，或者有更可靠的合作伙伴，但人脉广的人也更有可能感染社会传播的疾病。解开社会结构影响适应性的路径是社会进化中一个重大的突出问题。到目前为止，回答这个问题的尝试主要集中在长寿的繁殖缓慢的物种，如灵长类动物和鲸目动物。但是社会性在自然界中广泛存在，并且仍然不清楚社会环境如何影响具有不同生活史的其他分类群的适应性。兔子进来。欧洲兔（Oryctolagus cuniculus）是专性社会，但他们的社会环境的结构，以及它如何影响他们，仍然在很大程度上是未知的。它们也有一个快速的生活史，寿命短，繁殖迅速，使它们成为研究社会结构和健康之间联系的理想系统。在这个项目中，一个学生将使用欧洲兔人口居住的埃克塞特校园的了解机制，社会性可以影响生存在一个快速生活的义务社会mammalus.Project的目的和MethodsThe项目将涉及实地考察的埃克塞特斯特雷瑟姆校园的大学。使用耳标和PIT标签对家兔进行单独标记。通过观察标记兔子在野外的行为，我们建立了一个图片的空间使用和社会互动的个别兔子。还有可能探索使用接近标签等技术来获取更详细的社交数据。在研究过程中，学生将监测人口中的所有出生和死亡，然后我们可以将其与个体兔子的社会结构，生态学联系起来，以了解在新的领域系统中将社会结构和健身联系起来的机制。虽然该项目有几个目标，因为该项目将涉及建立一个新的领域系统，有相当大的范围为学生探索其他问题和方向，因为他们出现。具体目标1。研究欧洲兔子的社会结构，特别是社会网络结构。量化兔子的社会环境是如何与生态环境的空间结构联系在一起的，特别是沃伦的存在和捕食者的分布。3.建立欧洲兔子的社会结构和社会决策如何影响它们的健康（例如生存和繁殖成功）。

Project BackgroundRecent research has found connections between social structure and fitness in several species, including humans. However, the pathways by which social structure effects fitness remain largely unknown. Several have been proposed: for example well-connected individuals could be in a better position to learn beneficial social information, or have more reliable cooperative partners- but well-connected individuals may also be more likely to contract socially transmitted diseases. Disentangling the pathways by which social structure effects fitness is a major outstanding question in social evolution. Attempts to answer this question have, to date, focussed on long-lived slow-reproducing species such as primates and cetaceans. But sociality is widespread in nature and remains unclear how the social environment can affect fitness in other taxa with different life histories. Enter rabbits. European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are obligately social, but the structure of their social environment, and how it affects them, remains largely unknown. They also have a fast life-history with short lifespans are rapid reproduction, making them the ideal system to investigate the links between social structure and fitness. In this project a student will use the European rabbit population inhabiting the University of Exeter Campus to understand the mechanisms by which sociality can affect survival in a fast-living obligatory social mammal.Project Aims and MethodsThe project will involve fieldwork on the University of Exeter Streatham campus. Rabbits will be individually marked using ear tags and PIT tags. By observing the behaviour of marked rabbits in the wild we build up a picture of the space use and social interactions of individual rabbits. There is also the potential to explore the use of technology such as proximity tags to get more detailed social data. Over the course of the study the student will monitor all births and deaths in the population which we can then link to social structure, ecology of the individual rabbits to understand the mechanisms linked social structure and fitness in a novel field system. Although the project has several aims because the project will involve setting up a new field system there is considerable scope for the student to explore other questions and directions as they arise. Specific Objectives1. Investigate the social structure and particularly the social network structure of European rabbits 2. Quantify how the social environment of rabbits is linked to the spatial structure of the ecological environment, particularly the presence of warrens and the distribution of predators. 3. Establish how the social structure and social decisions of European rabbits influence their fitness (e.g. survival and reproductive success).