Parental care decisions in mammals and birds

我研究影响鸟类和哺乳动物如何做出育儿决定的社会、荷尔蒙和环境因素。双亲物种中的父母（父母双方都提供照顾）应该平衡后代的需求与自己和伴侣保持健康和良好身体状况的需求。我将重点放在两种哺乳动物系统上，在这两种系统中，父系养育是灵活的，并显示出相当大的个体差异：人类和啮齿动物。我们已经证明，人类父亲需要比母亲更多的养育经验，才能发展出与婴儿接触时相同水平的激素反应（即催乳素水平的变化）。在这个资助期间，我将研究激素水平和伴侣接触如何影响男性对婴儿的反应和男性承担额外父母工作的意愿。证明父母互动和父亲行为之间的联系可以帮助制定社会政策，促进父亲在社会更广泛领域的参与。在拟议的动物研究中，我将研究资源（食物）的分布和丰富程度如何影响觅食和照顾后代之间的时间预算，这项研究可能会对人类母亲的护理成功产生影响。我研究的第三个物种是海鸟（普通的海鸟），在海鸟中，广泛的父系照顾对后代的生存至关重要。海鸟研究的结果将增加我们对配对内互动和每年食物供应差异如何影响父母决定的理解。通过我与政府环境机构的持续合作研究，我的海鸟研究也可以为保护海洋环境的保护和野生动物管理决策做出贡献。

I study the social, hormonal and environmental factors that affect how birds and mammals make parental care decisions. Parents in biparental species (in which both parents provide care) should balance the needs of their offspring with their own and their partners' requirements for maintaining health and good body condition. I focus on two mammalian systems where paternal care is flexible and shows considerable individual variation: humans and rodents. We have shown that human fathers require more parental experience than mothers to develop the same level of hormonal responsiveness (i.e., changes in prolactin levels) to infant contact. In this grant period I will examine how hormone levels and partner contact affect men's responsiveness to infants and men's willingness to perform extra parental work. Demonstrating a link between parental interactions and fathering behaviour could help shape social policy that promotes increased father involvement in wider segments of our society. In the proposed animal studies, I will examine how the distribution and abundance of resources (food) affect how time is budgeted between foraging and bouts of offspring care, research that may have implications for nursing success in human mothers. My third study species is a seabird (common murre), in which extensive paternal care is critical to offspring survival. Results from the seabird studies will add to our understanding of how within-pair interactions and yearly differences in food availability affect parental decisions. Through my continuing collaborative studies with government environmental agencies, my seabird research can also contribute to conservation and wildlife management decisions that will protect the marine environment.