Social interactions and the maintenance of genetic polymorphism

几十年来，生物学家一直在努力确定个人行为是否以及何时更多地受到“先天”(基因)或“后天”(社会环境)的影响。虽然这两者都很重要，但新的研究表明，“先天”和“后天”实际上是复杂的现象，往往很难区分开来。当个人是社会群体的一部分时，这个问题就变得更加复杂。因此，这个项目的目标是了解社会群体如何对待拥有不同基因集的个人，以及拥有不同基因的个人如何对相同的社交线索做出不同的反应。让这个问题变得更容易处理的一种方法是对动物物种进行严格控制的实验，在这些实验中，特定的行为差异由单个基因调节。这项拟议的研究将使用两种由基因决定的雄性蚊子的颜色形式，它们对群体中其他成员表现出的攻击性程度不同。这些实验将确定群体组成如何影响幼鱼和成鱼的行为。这些研究将回答关于个体和群体之间相互作用的关键问题，如生活在“高攻击性”群体中如何影响幼鱼的健康和行为，以及“高”攻击性和“低”攻击性的影响是否取决于幼鱼自身的基因构成，还是主要受社会环境的调节？发布后，数据将存储在Dryad(datadryad.org)上。这些实验的结果将广泛有助于理解影响动物攻击性和其他社会行为的因素，包括人类。此外，该项目将促进教和学，增加来自代表性不足群体的学生的研究机会，并促进公众对科学的理解。该项目将支持一名女性博士生的培训，并将有来自代表性不足群体的本科生参加。研究人员还将为佛罗里达州的中学教师开发一个关于动物社会行为和遗传学的研讨会，作为一个受资助的“生物望远镜”项目的一部分。工作坊将由讲座和可适应教师课堂的实践活动组成。

For decades biologists have struggled to determine whether and when individual behavior is influenced more by "nature" (genes) or "nurture" (social environment). While both are known to matter, emerging research suggests that "nature" and "nurture" are actually complex phenomena that are frequently difficult to disentangle. This question becomes even more complex when individuals are part of a social group. Therefore the goal of this project is to understand how social groups behave toward individuals with different sets of genes and how individuals with different genes might respond differently to the same social cues. One way to make this problem more tractable is to use tightly controlled experiments with an animal species in which specific behavioral differences are regulated by a single gene. The proposed research will use two genetically determined color forms of male mosquitofish that differ in the amount of aggression they display toward other members of their group. The experiments will determine how group composition affects the behavior of juvenile and adult fish. The studies will answer critical questions of the interaction between individuals and groups, such as how does living in a "high aggression" group affect the health and behavior of a juvenile fish, and does any effect of "high" vs. "low" aggression depend on the juvenile's own genetic makeup or is it regulated primarily by the social environment? Upon publication data will be stored and available on DRYAD (datadryad.org. Results of these experiments will be broadly useful in understanding the factors that influence aggression and other social behavior in animals, including humans. In addition, the project will stimulate teaching and learning, increase research opportunities for students from underrepresented groups, and contribute to public understanding of science. The project will support the training of one female Ph.D. student, and will involve undergraduates from under-represented groups. The investigators will also develop a workshop on animal social behavior and genetics for Florida secondary school teachers as part of a funded "BioScopes" project. The workshop will consist of lectures and "hands-on" activities that can be adapted to the teachers' classrooms.