DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Understanding the evolutionary consequences of sociality through comparative and genome-wide analyses of social and solitary rodents

一种动物是单独生活还是与其他动物生活在一起，对生物体生物学的许多方面都有重要的影响。社会互动和群体生活是行为生物学中一些最令人兴奋和研究最深入的主题的组成部分，从人类精神病理学领域到动物社会中合作行为和生殖抑制的研究。了解在许多动物身上观察到的更常见的独居生活特征是如何以及为什么会演变成社会性的，已经成为一个特别感兴趣的话题，因为越来越多的证据表明，群居生活可能会招致一些成本；例如，与独居物种相比，生活在大型群居群体中的动物经常经历接触寄生虫和传染病的风险增加。这个项目致力于通过比较在社会组织上不同的密切相关和生态相似的物种的免疫基因的变化，来阐明社会动物如何应对与群体生活相关的独特压力，特别是在免疫功能方面。为了做到这一点，该项目使用了新开发的高效实验室程序，允许同时对所有活跃基因进行测序，从而提供了一幅非常完整的免疫遗传变异图景。确定群居物种和独居物种之间免疫基因的差异，将有助于深入了解哪些基因可能导致群居动物--包括人类--应对增加的病原体压力，并进一步了解抗病能力是如何进化和维持的。因此，通过研究在所有哺乳动物中发现的基因变异的行为相关性，这项工作将有助于目前对哺乳动物免疫系统的总体理解。这项研究还将为本科生参与生物学和生物信息学的研究和培训提供机会。

Whether an animal lives alone or with others has important implications for numerous aspects of an organism's biology. Social interactions and group living are integral aspects of some of the most exciting and intensely studied topics in behavioral biology, from the field of human psychopathology to investigations of cooperative behavior and reproductive suppression in animal societies. Understanding exactly how and why sociality evolves as an alternative to the more common trait of solitary living observed in many animals has become a topic of particular interest because growing evidence suggests that group living can incur a number of costs; for instance, animals that live in large social groups often experience an increased risk of exposure to parasites and communicable diseases compared to solitary species. This project endeavors to elucidate the ways in which social animals cope with the unique pressures associated with group living, particularly with regards to immune function, by comparing the variation in immune genes of closely related and ecologically similar species that differ in their social organization. To do this, the project uses newly developed, highly efficient laboratory procedures that allow sequencing of all active genes at the same time, thereby providing a very complete picture of immunogenetic variation. Characterizing the differences in immune genes between social and solitary species will provide insights into which genes are potentially responsible for allowing social animals - including humans - to cope with increased pathogen pressures as well as a further understanding of how disease resistance evolves and is maintained. Thus, by investigating the behavioral correlates of variation in genes found in all mammals, this work will inform current understanding of the mammalian immune system in general. This research will also provide opportunities for undergraduate involvement in research and training in both biology and bioinformatics