OPUS: PRAIRIE DOG SOCIETIES: SYNTHESIS OF 45 YEARS OF RESEARCH ON BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY

本计画将综合研究四种土拨鼠的生态与社会行为。重点将是三个因素，不仅影响草原土拨鼠，但也有数百个其他脊椎动物的社会物种：非父母的杀婴，报警电话，和一妻多夫制（一个单一的女性与两个或更多的男性交配）。综合将研究这些因素如何影响土拨鼠殖民地社会生活的成本和收益。研究的两个产品将产生：一本书，将综合呈现给广大的科学观众和一个网站，具有几十年的图像，录音，视频和数据集针对高中生，本科生和其他好奇的自然主义者的所有年龄。最后，研究人员将继续与四家电视公司合作-包括国家地理电视台-最近记录了他对土拨鼠的研究。这项研究提供了对哺乳动物中常见但知之甚少的社会行为进化的见解;行为生态学家、野生动物管理者和保护生物学家将对这些产品产生广泛的兴趣。社会物种表现出几种最初令人困惑的行为，这个项目旨在汇集40年来关于草原土拨鼠物种的数据，以了解其中的三种行为：非亲性杀害报警电话和一妻多夫从表面上看，这些行为中的每一种似乎都对健康有害，因此需要重点调查才能理解。该项目将利用长期数据跟踪个人一生的行为和生殖成功，以了解这些现象。特别是，合成将包括新的分析集中在殖民地密度的作用，对频率的杀虫剂，成本和效益的个人，给一个报警电话，这可能会引起捕食者的注意，和成本和效益的多个交配的女性。这将是第一个阐明这些行为在一生中的一致性和偶然性以及对健身的影响的研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This project will synthesize research on the ecology and social behavior of four species of prairie dogs. The focus will be three factors that affect not only prairie dogs, but also hundreds of other vertebrate social species: non-parental infanticide, alarm calling, and polyandry (a single female mating with two or more males). The synthesis will examine how these factors have influenced the costs and benefits of social life within prairie dog colonies. Two products of the research will result: a book that will present the synthesis to a wide scientific audience and a website featuring decades of images, audio recordings, videos, and datasets directed at high school students, undergraduates, and other curious naturalists of all ages. Finally, the researcher will continue to collaborate with four television companies - including National Geographic Television - that have recently documented his research with prairie dogs. This research provides insights into the evolution of common, but poorly understood, social behaviors in mammals; the products will be of broad interest to behavioral ecologists, wildlife managers, and conservation biologists.Social species exhibit several initially puzzling behaviors, and this project aims to pull together four decades of data on prairie dog species to understand three such behaviors: non-parental infanticide, alarm calling, and polyandry. Each of these behaviors seems detrimental to fitness on the surface and hence requires focused investigation to understand. This project will leverage long term data following the behavior of individuals over their lifetime and their reproductive success to understand these phenomena. In particular, the synthesis will include new analyses focused on the role of colony density on the frequency of infanticide, the costs and benefits to an individual that gives an alarm call, which may draw a predator's attention, and the costs and benefits of multiple matings by females. This will be the first study to elucidate the consistency and contingency of these behaviors over a life time and the consequences for fitness. The analyses will clarify the maintenance of coloniality despite these apparent costs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.