The puzzle of being social in space

社交行为几乎总是需要共享空间。对社会生物学家来说，空间混淆，而对空间生态学家来说，社会聚集错误地重复了数据。然而，社交和空间利用是密不可分的。因此，占用空间与获取优质资源有关，同时平衡对这些资源的竞争，并使用动物聚集物来降低捕食风险。整合现有的理论框架，这些理论框架明确是空间的，但隐含的是社会性的--或者相反--将使我们能够获得新的推论。我们提出的研究计划有三个行动。首先，我们建议测试单个动物是否在精确的社会和空间行为上表现出灵活性，这些行为似乎与彼此的利益相冲突，并因季节而异。我们使用复制种群的长期遥测数据来测试灵活性。其次，我们将行为学和生物学结合起来，转向更精细的推断。通过这些方法，我们实证检验了空间变异在资源质量和细微尺度的社会中介栖息地选择中的竞争作用。我们将使用与营养相关的元素比例分布模型，例如碳：氮，以获取资源质量。第三，利用全球数据和一个实验性的运动生态学中观模型，我们提出并验证了生产力-社会性梯度假说。该假说预测了净初级生产力的时空变化，这是一种促进个体、种群和物种在社会网络衍生行为中的变异性的机制。该提案旨在证明，我已将野生动物进化生态实验室设计为一个包容、安全和欢迎的环境，其支持公平、多样性和包容性的积极行动继续帮助人们克服体制和纪律障碍，并将寻求公平的个人提升到我们学科中的有影响力的职位。该提案将至少再培训10名HQP，继续专注于在研究和服务方面发展卓越，并帮助人们实现他们的科学和与科学相邻的倡导目标。不同的方法：为了确保可靠的推论，我们将使用从实验操作到全球数据合成的多种方式。对申请的影响：拟议的工作主要集中在保护和文化关注的社会物种，特别是我们的土著和机构合作伙伴(驯鹿)。我们的工作有很好的理论基础，致力于将行为与对管理者和自然资源保护者有价值的指标联系起来，例如人口死亡率。对理论的影响：我们的提案将提供对在空间中跨生物组织水平的社交的谜题的洞察：个人、群体、种群和物种。询问社会-空间界面将提供关于不断变化的世界中社会和空间表型之间协变的原因和后果的准确信息。

Social behaviors almost invariably require sharing space. To sociobiologists space confounds and to spatial ecologists social aggregations falsely repeat data. However, sociality and space use are inseparable. Thus, occupying space relates at accessing quality resources while balancing competition for those resources and using the animal aggregations to decrease predation risk. Integrating existing theoretical frameworks that are explicitly spatial, but implicitly social - or the inverse - will permit us access to novel inferences. Our proposed research program has three actions. In the first, we propose to test whether individual animals exhibit flexibility in precise social and spatial behaviors that appear to conflict with one another's benefits and vary by season. We test for flexibility using long-term telemetry data on replicated populations. Second, we pivot to finer-scale inferences by combining ethology and biologging. With these methods, we empirically test the competing roles of spatial variation in resource quality and fine-scale socially-mediated habitat selection. We will use nutritionally relevant distribution models of elemental ratios, e.g., carbon:nitrogen, to capture resource quality. Third, using global data and an experimental movement ecology mesocosm, we propose and test the productivity-sociality gradient hypothesis. The hypothesis predicts spatial and temporal variation in net primary productivity is a mechanism that promotes individuals, populations, and species' variability in social network-derived behaviors. The proposal aims to demonstrate that I have designed the Wildlife Evolutionary Ecology Lab as an inclusive, safe, and welcoming environment whose positive actions in support of equity, diversity, and inclusivity continue to help people overcome institutional and disciplinary barriers and result in elevating equity-seeking individuals to impactful positions within our discipline. The proposal will train at least 10 more HQP, with continued focus on developing excellence in research and service, and helping people achieve their science and science-adjacent, advocacy goals. Diverse approaches: To ensure robust inferences we will use multiple ways of knowing from experimental manipulations to global data syntheses. IMPACT for Application: The proposed work predominantly focusses on social species of conservation and cultural concern, particularly to our Indigenous and agency partners (caribou). Well-grounded in theory, our work endeavors to link behaviors with metrics valuable to managers and conservationists, such as population vital rates. IMPACT for Theory: Our proposal will provide insights into the puzzle of being social in space across levels of biological organization: individuals, groups, populations, and species. Interrogating the social-spatial interface will provide precision about the causes and consequences of covariance between social and spatial phenotypes in a changing world.