Dissertation Research: Social dynamics in a territorial animal communication network

合作的成本和收益是生物学、心理学、人类学和经济学的核心问题。一个核心问题是该信任谁；也就是说，个人应该与谁合作，这样他们才不会被剥削。近年来，越来越多的证据表明，动物可能会根据不仅通过直接互动，而且通过窃听与其他个体互动而获得的信息来选择值得信赖的个体。目前的项目提出了一个详细的实验分析，雄性鸣禽之间的互动互动的社会动态，一种北美鸣禽。和许多其他有领地意识的物种一样，这一物种的雄性以减少对既定边界附近邻居的攻击的形式表现出相互合作，这种现象被称为“亲爱的敌人效应”。在目前的项目中，用带有无线电标签的鸟类进行回放实验，模拟邻居闯入另一个人的领地。这一预测是，雄性歌雀将利用来自邻居互动的复杂信息来决定哪些邻居值得信赖，哪些邻居不值得信赖。特别是，该项目询问鸣禽是否能够根据它们与其他邻居的互动来区分它们的邻居，例如它们是否能够区分对邻居的合理和不合理的侵略行为。研究结果有望提供迄今为止最详细的关于自然界地域通信网络的实验分析，从而为试图解释包括人类在内的动物的合作行为的合作理论提供依据。该项目将涉及本科生和高中生，以及面向公众的教育活动。

The costs and benefits of cooperation is a central issue in biology, psychology, anthropology and economics. A central issue is the question of whom to trust; that is, whom individuals should cooperate with so that they do not get exploited. In recent years, evidence has accumulated that animals may choose trustworthy individuals on the basis of information acquired not just through direct interactions but through eavesdropping on that individual interacting with other individuals. The current project proposes a detailed experimental analysis of the social dynamics of interactions among territorial male song sparrows, a North American songbird. The males of this species, as in many other territorial species, show mutual cooperation in the form of reduced aggression towards their neighbors along their established boundaries, a phenomenon known as the Dear Enemy Effect. In the present project, playback experiments with radio-tagged birds will simulate a neighbor intruding on another's territory. The prediction is that male song sparrows will use complex information from the interactions of their neighbors to base their decisions as to which neighbors are trustworthy and which are not. In particular, the project asks whether song sparrows are able to make fine-scale distinctions between their neighbors based on their interactions with other neighbors, such as whether they can discriminate between justified and unjustified acts of aggression towards a neighbor. The results are expected to provide the most detailed experimental analysis of a territorial communication network in nature to date and thus inform theories of cooperation that try to explain cooperative acts in animals including our own species. The project will involve undergraduate and high school students, as well as educational activities for the general public.