EAGER: Removing barriers to macro-ecoevolutionary studies of the avian brain

为什么近亲鸟类的大脑大小差异如此之大？为什么有些物种严重依赖认知解决方案来应对生活的挑战，而另一些却不是？这项研究将利用鸟类大脑大小的巨大多样性和自然历史来研究这些基本问题。研究人员将生成一个物种内部和物种之间大脑大小变化的大型数据集，以促进认知生态学的比较研究。他们将把这些数据与其他领域的长期数据集相结合，以调查大脑比预期的更大（或更小）的物种是否具有独特的生态作用。该项目还将研究不同的历史和自然历史限制如何导致大脑大小进化的根本不同途径。这种方法与我们自己的物种高度相关，因为驱动我们异常大的大脑进化的条件目前尚不清楚。更广泛的影响包括让不同的公民在密苏里州弗格森的农贸市场进行这项工作的每月报告。为了增加目前鸟类大脑大小估计样本的深度和广度，数据收集工作将以北美鸣禽为目标。这一群体在相对脑容量、生态和自然历史上表现出相当大的差异，以及脑容量、行为灵活性和神经元数量之间的强相关性。北美地区具有多种多样的环境条件、特征鲜明的生态群落以及丰富的关于当地种群动态、生态学和物候学的高质量时序数据。研究人员将评估大脑大小与非生物生态位的宽度、平均重叠和位置之间的关系。非生物生态位是指一个物种在多维气候空间中占据的体积。为了研究大脑大小进化的其他途径的可能性，研究人员将评估在不同栖息地中大脑相对较小的物种在饮食、大小和繁殖产出方面与大脑相对较大的物种的差异程度。数据共享将通过开发和托管一个在线存储库来实现，该存储库将免费和无限制地访问所有可用的鸟类脑大小数据（及其相关元数据）。该网页还将提供一种机制，用于获取和审查来自世界各地社区贡献者的新数据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

Why does brain size vary so much among closely related bird species? Why do some species rely heavily on cognitive solutions to life's challenges, whereas others do not? This research will take advantage of the considerable diversity of brain sizes and natural history among birds to investigate these fundamental questions. The researchers will generate a large dataset of within and between species variation in brain size to facilitate this comparative study in cognitive ecology. They will integrate these data with long-term datasets from other fields to investigate whether species with larger (and smaller) than expected brains have unique ecological roles. The project will also examine how different historical and natural history constraints can lead to fundamentally different pathways for brain size evolution. This approach is highly relevant to our own species, given that the conditions that drove the evolution of our exceptionally large brain are currently unclear. Broader impacts include engaging diverse citizens in accessible monthly presentations of this work at the farmer's market in Ferguson, MO. To increase the depth and breadth of the current sample of avian brain size estimates, data collection efforts will target North American songbirds. This group exhibits considerable variation in relative brain size, ecology and natural history, as well as strong correlations between brain size, behavioral flexibility, and neuron numbers. The North American region offers a wide variety of environmental conditions, well-characterized ecological communities, and a wealth of high-quality time-series data on local population dynamics, ecology and phenology. The researchers will evaluate how brain size relates to the breadth, mean overlap, and position of abiotic ecological niches, measured as the volume that a species occupies in multi-dimensional climate space. To investigate the possibility of alternative pathways for brain size evolution, the researchers will evaluate the extent to which species with small relative brain sizes in variable habitats differ in diet, size and reproductive output from those with relatively large brains. Data sharing will be achieved by developing and hosting an online repository that will provide free and unrestricted access to all available avian brain size data (and their associated metadata). This web page will also provide a mechanism for obtaining and vetting new data from community contributors from around the world.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.