The Socioecology of Parental Investment Strategies in Ants.

父母的一个基本决定是在后代身上投入多少。这可能涉及到一种权衡，即在每个领域投入更多资金会减少年轻人的总数。目前的育儿教条认为这种权衡总是存在的，因为食物总是有限的。如果这是真的，父母应该争取一个“最佳”尺寸的孩子，并应该在每个孩子身上投入同样的钱。此外，如果食物供应发生变化，父母应该改变后代的数量，而不是它们的大小。然而，如果父母并不总是食物有限，那么父母可以将投资与直接环境相匹配（从而产生不同大小和质量的后代）。虽然这些是非常不同的养育方式，但它们并不容易区分。在下列情况下需要进行试验的物种：(1)后代大小的后果是可测量的；(2)一次产生许多幼崽，以便量化和比较后代的大小分布。蚂蚁是测试亲代投资策略的理想场所。后代的大小很大程度上影响着新殖民地的建立成功，成熟的殖民地一次会产生数百只后代。我们的研究目标是：(1)量化收获蚁后代大小的成本和收益；(2)在田间实验中操纵其殖民地的食物。总之，这些实验测试了生态如何影响父母的行为。如果父母的策略确实跟踪环境，那么在理解亲子冲突、后代性别比和社会群体繁殖方面的重大范式转变就会随之而来。本项目将在野外生物学、数据收集和实验设计方面培养一名研究生和几名本科生。来自历史上代表性不足群体的学生将通过加州大学洛杉矶分校、美国国家科学基金会和美国国立卫生研究院支持的项目（CARE和MARC）招募。一位高中教师Rosa Chan女士将通过教师研究经验（RET）计划参与项目的各个方面。她将接受培训，开发以探究为基础的课堂课程（也将通过加州大学洛杉矶分校的GK-12项目在线提供）。

A fundamental decision for parents is how much to invest in offspring. Potentially this involves a tradeoff where more investment in each one reduces the total number of young.. The current dogma for parental care assumes this tradeoff is always present because food is always limiting. If true, parents should strive for a single "optimal" size young and should invest the same amount into every offspring. Further, if food availability changes, parents should change numbers of offspring rather than their size. If parents are not always food limited, however, then parents can match investment to the immediate environment (resulting in offspring of varying size and quality). Although these are very different ways of rearing young, they are not easy to differentiate. Tests require species where: (1) Consequences of offspring size are measurable; and (2) Many young are produced at one time so that offspring size distributions can be quantified and compared. Ants are ideal for testing parental investment strategies. Offspring size strongly affects founding success of new colonies, and mature colonies produce hundreds of young at a time. The goals of our research are to: (1) Quantify the costs and benefits of offspring size in harvester ants, and (2) Experimentally manipulate food for their colonies in the field. Together, the experiments test how ecology affects parental behavior. If parental strategies do track the environment, a major paradigm shift in understanding parent-offspring conflict, offspring sex ratios, and reproduction in social groups will follow. This project will train one graduate student and several undergraduates in field biology, data collection and experimental design. Students from historically underrepresented groups will be recruited through programs (CARE and MARC) supported by UCLA, NSF and NIH. One high school teacher, Ms. Rosa Chan, will be included in all aspects of the project through the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. She will be trained to develop inquiry-based lessons for classroom use (which will also be made available online through UCLA's GK-12 program).