Parental care decisions in mammals and birds

我研究影响鸟类和哺乳动物如何做出父母照料决定的社会、激素和环境因素。双亲物种的父母(在双亲物种中，父母双方都提供照顾)应该平衡他们后代的需要与他们自己和他们的伴侣保持健康和良好身体状况的需要。我主要关注两种哺乳动物系统，在这两种系统中，父亲的照顾是灵活的，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，人类父亲比母亲需要更多的父母经验，才能对婴儿接触产生相同水平的激素反应(即催乳素水平的变化)。在这一赠款期间，我将研究荷尔蒙水平和伴侣接触如何影响男性对婴儿的反应以及男性是否愿意承担额外的父母工作。证明父母互动和父亲行为之间的联系可以帮助形成社会政策，促进父亲更多地参与我们社会的更广泛领域。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从觅食到后代护理之间的时间预算，这一研究可能对人类母亲的哺乳成功具有影响。我的第三个研究物种是海鸟(普通海鸟)，在海鸟中，父亲的广泛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的相互作用和食物供应的年度差异如何影响父母决策的理解。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.