Testing hypotheses of social priming in females

非技术性摘要：男性之间的社会竞争被认为诱导了一套协调的行为和生理反应，这些反应适应于在竞争中继续取得成功。目前还不清楚这些过程是如何在雌性体内运作的，尽管有新的证据表明，雌性竞争在动物界很普遍，也是有益的。这项研究将确定社会竞争是否以及如何为未来的竞争“准备”(或适应性地准备)女性。主题是一种筑巢的雌性鸣鸟，树燕，来自竞争对手的社会挑战对生存和繁殖构成了非常真实的威胁。使用在野外产生竞争的实验操作，这项研究将调查社会竞争如何改变女性的攻击性、产妇护理和免疫功能，包括连接从基因表达到行为和生理再到生殖健康的多个层次的生物组织的工具和方法。对女性攻击性的研究是一个很好的平台，可以在科学领域接触妇女和女孩，印第安纳大学校园附近的几个社区组织的实践模块将突出这一点，重点是洞穴筑巢鸟类的困境和栖息地丧失对它们行为的影响。在这些努力中，交互式数据记录嵌套箱的开发是一个突出的特点。该项目还将为本科生提供动物行为方面的独特培训，包括现场、实验室和编程技能、公共演讲、伦理学和批判性思维。培训的主要途径是夏季本科生研究项目，目标是在科学界代表性不足的群体。技术摘要：这项研究的总体目标是确定社会挑战如何为女性未来的社会不稳定做好准备，特别是大脑和外周如何在表型和转录反应中协调。有效的假设是，社会挑战是女性在未来的竞争中取得成功的关键，有利于女性更具攻击性，但代价是父母养育和自我维持的代价更大，这些影响是通过特定G蛋白偶联受体信号系统的组织水平变化来协调的，这些信号系统对女性来说不像男性典型的睾丸素社会调节那样代价高昂。使用在野外产生真正的社会不稳定的实验操作，这项研究将(1)量化社会不稳定如何改变攻击性和产妇护理，(2)量化社会环境如何影响炎症功能，作为免疫系统准备程度的综合衡量，可能在比赛中相关，(3)识别和实验扰乱神经和外围组织中的社会敏感基因网络，包括一种可以在不实施安乐死(血液)的情况下重新采样的组织。因此，这项研究是生物生物学预测对各种环境挑战的反应这一目标的关键一步，它将推动将功能与机制相结合的广泛适用的行为可塑性模型的发展。整个生物体的方法将允许对表型和基因组灵活性的新视角，其中通过联合考虑大脑和外围设备获得的见解尚未完全实现。这些研究为理解有机体对生态相关行为挑战的反应的机制、表型后果和适应意义提供了一个非同寻常的机会。

Non-technical Abstract:Social competition among males is thought to induce a coordinated set of behavioral and physiological responses that are adaptive for continued success during competition. It is far less clear how these processes operate in females, despite emerging evidence that female competition is widespread and beneficial in the animal kingdom. This research will identify whether and how social competition "primes" (or adaptively prepares) females for future competition. The subject is a cavity-nesting female songbird, the tree swallow, for which social challenges from rivals pose a very real threat to survival and reproduction. Using experimental manipulations that generate competition in the wild, this research will investigate how social competition alters female aggression, maternal care, and immune function, including tools and approaches that connect multiple levels of biological organization, from gene expression, to behavior and physiology, to reproductive fitness. Research on female aggression is an excellent platform for outreach to women and girls in science, and this will be highlighted in hands-on modules for several community organizations near Indiana University's campus, with an emphasis on the plight of cavity nesting birds and the effects of habitat loss on their behavior. The development of an interactive data-logging nestbox features prominently in these efforts. This project will also provide unique training for undergraduates in animal behavior, including field, lab, and programming skills, public speaking, ethics, and critical thinking. The primary avenue for training is a summer undergraduate research program that targets groups underrepresented in the sciences. Technical Abstract:The overall goal of this research is to determine how social challenges prepare females for future social instability, particularly how brain and periphery are coordinated in their phenotypic and transcriptomic responses. The working hypotheses are that social challenges prime females for success in future competition, favoring greater aggression at the expense of parenting and self-maintenance, and that these effects are coordinated by tissue-level changes in specific G protein-coupled receptor signaling systems that are not as costly to females as the male-typical social modulation of testosterone. Using experimental manipulations that generate true social instability in the wild, this research will (1) quantify how social instability alters aggression and maternal care, (2) quantify how the social environment affects inflammatory function, as an integrated measure of immune system readiness that may be relevant during competition, and (3) identify and experimentally perturb socially sensitive gene networks in neural and peripheral tissues, including one tissue that can be re-sampled without euthanasia (blood). This research is therefore an essential step in organismal biology's goal of predicting responses to diverse environmental challenges, and it will advance the development of broadly applicable models of behavioral plasticity that integrate function with mechanism. A whole-organism approach will allow new perspectives on phenotypic and genomic flexibility, where insights to be gained by joint consideration of brain and periphery have yet to be fully realized. These studies offer an extraordinary opportunity for substantive advances in understanding the mechanisms, phenotypic consequences, and adaptive significance of organismal responses to ecologically relevant behavioral challenges.