The evolution of honest communication: the physiological consequences of social costs

动物交流系统的真实性是行为生物学的核心问题。是什么阻止了弱的、低质量的个体通过暗示自己很强大来“欺骗”？一般的答案是，高质量的信号是昂贵的，低质量的信号比高质量的信号相对更昂贵。该项目将通过测试两种众所周知的成本：积极的社会成本和生理成本之间的相互作用，对维持信号诚实的因素采取新的视角。信号不准确的短期和长期后果将通过行为观察和测量纸蜂的内分泌滴度来测试。智力价值：尽管在了解动物交流系统的真实性方面取得了很大进展，但许多众所周知的装饰品缺乏明确的成本。此外，在理解激进的社会成本如何在进化过程中保持信号诚实方面，存在理论和经验上的挑战。我们的建议将通过测试社会惩罚的生理后果来扩展和重新定义当前的假设。因此，它将解决与理解社会成本相关的许多挑战，并将这一假设的适用性扩大到不同的系统。总的来说，了解生理和社会成本之间的动态反馈应该会增加对动物交流系统可靠性的理解。更广泛的影响：对本科生的培训将是该项目的主要组成部分，因为这项研究有效地吸引了学生的兴趣，并且有抱负的研究人员可以使用这些技术。其他的教育活动将包括参加公共科学教育项目和参观当地学校。

The honesty of animal communication systems is a central issue in behavioral biology. What prevents weak, low quality individuals from "cheating" by signaling that they are strong? The general answer is that quality signals are costly and signaling a high level of quality is relatively more costly for low quality than high quality individuals. This project will take a new perspective on the factors that maintain signal honesty by testing the interplay between two well-known costs: aggressive social costs and physiological costs. The short and long term consequences of signal inaccuracy will be tested via behavioral observation and measurement of endocrine titers in Polistes dominulus paper wasps. Intellectual merit: Although much progress has been made toward understanding the honesty of animal communication systems, many well-known ornaments lack clear costs. Further, there are theoretical and empirical challenges associated with understanding how aggressive social costs maintain signal honesty over evolutionary time. Our proposal will extend and re-define current hypotheses by testing the physiological consequences of social punishment. As such, it will address many of the challenges associated with understanding social costs and broaden the applicability of this hypothesis to diverse systems. Overall, understanding the dynamic feedbacks between physiology and social costs should increase understanding of the reliability of animal communication systems. Broader impacts: Training of undergraduate students will be a major component of the project, as this research is effective at capturing student interest and the techniques are accessible to aspiring researchers. Additional educational activities will include participation in public science education programs and visits to local schools.