FOR 1232: Reduction of Phenotypic Plasticity in Behaviour by Early Experience: Functional Consequences of an Adaptive Mechanism?

遗传和环境因素的相互作用产生了一个反应规范，它允许环境信息适应性地整合到表型中。对于大多数性状-包括行为-表型可塑性在个体发育过程中强烈下降。人们经常假设，行为是进化的一个步伐制造商，由于其固有的可塑性，但它还没有被调查的细节如何早期个体发育限制成人的可塑性。在一个明确的进化背景下，我们的研究单位将集中研究如何成年人的行为特征，结果在早期个体发育不同的社会和觅食条件。我们的方法强调，可塑性是一种适应机制，在个体发育过程中建立成人行为表型。我们将调查个体发育相关的生态因素的适应性性状调整的影响明确的重点。我们以比较的方式处理这个问题，集中在我们有大量经验的不同类群（哺乳动物，鸟类，昆虫）的几个物种上。通过在生活史特征差异很大的动物项目中提出类似的、概念上密切相关的问题来解决这个问题，应该能够提取关于（1）信息摄取和表型变化的时间，（2）在重要的行为和生活史参数中可能引起的变化类型，以及（3）这些变化是否适合早期经历的个体发育条件及其适应价值（即成本和收益）。

The interaction of genetic and environmental factors generates a reaction norm, which allows adaptive integration of environmental information into the phenotype. For most traits - including behaviour - phenotypic plasticity decreases strongly during ontogeny. It has often been postulated that behaviour is a pace maker of evolution due to its inherent plasticity, but it has not been investigated in much detail how early ontogeny limits adult plasticity. In an explicitly evolutionary context, our Research Unit will concentrate on studying how adult behavioural traits result as a consequence of different social and foraging conditions during early ontogeny. Our approach emphasises that plasticity is an adaptive mechanism building the adult behavioural phenotype during ontogeny. We will investigate the ontogenetic response to relevant ecological factors with an explicit focus on fitness effects of trait adjustments. We approach the problem in a comparative way concentrating on a few species from different taxa (mammals, birds, insects) for which we have massive prior experience. Addressing the issue by asking similar, conceptually closely related questions across projects on animals differing widely in life history traits should allow to extract generalities with regard to (1) the time of information uptake and phenotype change, (2) the kind of changes that can be induced in important behavioural and life history parameters and (3) the fit of such changes to the ontogenetic conditions experienced earlier and their adaptive value (i.e. costs and benefits).