Evolution and Ecology of Social Behaviour

安全废水管理是一项全球性挑战。虽然加拿大大多数城市使用处理系统来处理废水，但处理后的废水流出物仍然含有污染物的混合物，构成水生生态系统中最大的污染源。不幸的是，经过处理的废水中的营养物质提供了丰富的食物来源，经常吸引动物到排放经过处理的废水的地区。众所周知，接触处理过的废水中的化学物质会改变动物的行为，但迄今为止，研究人员主要集中在生殖行为和简单行为（如运动）上。我们几乎不知道长期暴露于处理过的废水如何影响复杂的社会行为，如群体聚集和社会协调（这可以促进食物获取和捕食者躲避）。社会行为对个体有很大的健康效益，并对人口增长和适应能力产生伴随的影响。我的研究计划的长期目标是了解复杂的社会性是如何以及为什么进化和维持的，以及人类的影响是如何影响动物行为的。这项研究计划利用了我在这两个领域的研究专长，并建立在已经到位的经验、工具和合作的基础上。这项提议的目的是确定废水-一种无处不在的环境压力-如何影响鱼类的社会行为。使用多学科的方法，结合行为学、生态学、生理学和生态毒理学研究工具，我和我的学生将调查废水暴露影响鱼类社会结构和社会行为的无数方式，以及季节性和社会环境如何调节废水暴露的影响。为了实现这一目标，我提出了一系列的12项研究，利用强大的新工具同时测量多个个体，以监测代谢率和群体凝聚力。我们的研究结果将塑造卓越的废水处理管理，建立更大的实验室生态毒理学研究的生态有效性，改进生态风险评估，并为减轻加拿大和全球水生生态系统的人类影响提供信息。最后一个好处，也是我优先考虑的，是拟议的研究将创造一个多样化和包容性的培训环境，由一位成熟而忠诚的女科学家领导，这将支持下一代加拿大水生环境生态学家和进化行为科学家。

Safe wastewater management is a global challenge. While most municipalities in Canada use treatment systems to process wastewater, treated wastewater effluent still contains a mixture of contaminants, comprising the largest point source of pollution in aquatic ecosystems. Sadly, the rich food sources supp¬lied by the nutrients in treated wastewater often attract animals to areas where treated wastewater is discharged. Exposure to the chemicals in treated wastewater is known to alter animals behaviour, but to date researchers have mainly focused studies on reproductive behaviour and simple behaviours such as locomotion. We know virtually nothing about how chronic exposure to treated wastewater influences complex social behaviours such as group aggregation and social coordination (which can promote food acquisition and predator avoidance). Social behaviours can have large fitness benefits for individuals and concomitant impacts on population growth and resilience. The long-term goals of my research program are to understand how and why complex sociality evolved and is maintained, and how human impacts influence animal behaviour. This research proposal leverages my research expertise in both these areas and builds upon experience, tools, and collaborations that are already in place. The aim of this proposal is to determine how wastewater-a ubiquitous environmental stressor-impacts the social behaviour of fishes. Using a multidisciplinary approach that combines behavioural, ecological, physiological, and ecotoxicological research tools, my students and I will investigate the myriad ways that wastewater exposure affects the social structure and social behaviour of fishes, and how seasonality and the social environment modulate the impacts of wastewater exposures. To address this aim, I propose a series of 12 studies with fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) that take advantage of powerful new tools for simultaneous measurement of multiple individuals to monitor metabolic rates and group cohesion. Our results will shape superior wastewater treatment management, establish greater ecological validity of laboratory ecotoxicology research, improve ecological risk assessment, and inform the mitigation of human impacts on aquatic ecosystems in Canada and globally. A final benefit, and a priority for me, is that the proposed research will create a diverse and inclusive training environment-led by an established and committed woman scientist-that will support the next generation of Canadian aquatic environmental ecologists and evolutionary behavioural scientists.