CAREER: Social Behavior and Genetics in a Fission-Fusion Society of African Elephants

职业：裂变融合社会中的社会行为和遗传学。苏珊·c·阿尔伯兹这个计划中的项目以非洲大象的野生种群为研究对象，将使用行为数据和基因技术来检验有关社会行为进化的关键假设。这些假设涉及(1)雄性之间交配成功率差异的原因，(2)近亲交配回避的程度和机制，(3)社会关系由亲属关系决定的程度，以及(4)行为对种群遗传结构的影响。本提案中讨论的问题对于理解社会行为的进化具有普遍的重要性，对于理解一个经过充分研究的濒危物种种群的行为与基因之间的关系具有特别重要的意义。这项工作将涉及肯尼亚安博塞利国家公园的非洲象种群，自1974年以来，这一直是正在进行的行为和人口研究的主题。像许多群居哺乳动物一样，大象在雌性亲属之间表现出长期的联系，交配行为倾向于在社会上占主导地位的雄性。然而，与大多数哺乳动物不同，大象表现出一种非常不稳定的裂变融合社会形式，在这种社会中，一头大象可能在某一年与几乎所有的群体成员联系在一起。这就提出了一些独特的问题，如亲属之间不可预测地相遇时避免近亲繁殖，在不稳定的社会环境中进行合作，以及在流动的社会内部和之间进行遗传分化和基因流动。该项目的基因部分将包括大规模微卫星分析和线粒体DNA研究，重点关注400个人。这些遗传数据将用于确定(1)一组小牛的父系关系，(2)繁殖雌性和雄性之间的亲缘关系水平，(3)焦点家族中雌性之间的遗传亲缘关系水平，以及(4)家族内和家族间母系和父系亲属网络的分布。该项目的教育部分包括研究生和本科课程的开发，以及为达勒姆地区的高中生物教师开发一个讲习班，这些教师表示迫切需要为他们的课堂提供额外的课程内容。达勒姆地区的公立学校有很高的少数民族入学率（60%），并且对科学教育有很强的承诺，包括进化论的教学。研讨会旨在提供行为生态学的课程内容，并利用这一分支学科的强烈流行吸引力，以增加达勒姆大学不同学生群体对基础生物学研究的兴趣。

CAREER: Social behavior and genetics in a fission-fusion society. Susan C. AlbertsFocusing on a wild population of African elephants, the proposed project will test critical hypotheses about the evolution of social behavior, using both behavioral data and genetic techniques. These hypotheses address (1) the causes of differences in mating success among males, (2) the extent and mechanisms of inbreeding avoidance, (3) the extent to which social relationships are determined by kinship, and (4) the impact of behavior on the genetic structure of populations. The questions addressed in this proposal are of both general importance for understanding the evolution of social behavior, and of particular importance for understanding the relationship between behavior and genes in a well-studied population of a threatened species. The work will involve the African elephant population in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, which has been the subject of ongoing behavioral and demographic studies since 1974. Elephants, like many social mammals, exhibit long-term associations among female relatives, and mating behavior that favors a class of socially dominant males. However, unlike most mammals, elephants exhibit a very fluid form of fission-fusion society, in which an individual elephant may associate with almost every member of the population in a given year. This raises unique questions about inbreeding avoidance where relatives encounter each other unpredictably, about cooperation in unstable social settings, and about genetic differentiation and gene flow within and between fluid societies. The genetic component of the project will include a large-scale microsatellite analysis and a study of mitochondrial DNA, focusing on 400 individuals. These genetic data will be used to establish (1) paternity for a subset of calves, (2) levels of relatedness between breeding females and males, (3) levels of genetic relatedness between females in focal families, and (4) the distribution of maternal and paternal kin networks within and across families. The educational component of the project includes graduate and undergraduate course development, as well as the development of a workshop for Durham area high school biology teachers, who have expressed a pressing need for additional course content for their classrooms. Durham area public schools have a high (60%) minority enrollment as well as a strong commitment to science education, including the teaching of evolution. The workshop aims to provide course content in behavioral ecology, and to capitalize on the strong popular appeal of this sub-discipline in order to increase interest in basic biological research among Durham's diverse student population.