How social environments affect selection on animal behavioural types

在过去的十年中，行为生态学家对不同时间和环境下个体之间一致的行为变化越来越感兴趣，在行为生态学文献中称为动物个性。最近的荟萃分析表明，个体之间一致的行为差异是自然界动物种群的一般特征。换句话说，不同的行为类型在人群中共存。社会环境，即同种之间的相互作用，代表了个人面临的最具活力的环境力量之一，因为个人自己的行为以及同种行为共同定义了相互作用的频率和强度，因此，社会环境引起的选择。一个人的整体健康状况不仅取决于其自身的行为类型，还取决于其自身的行为类型与人群中行为类型组成（即其社会环境）之间的相互作用。令人惊讶的是，尽管社会环境在竞争、合作和交配中发挥着重要作用，但迄今为止，它在很大程度上被忽视了，上述预测也没有得到真正的检验。在这个项目中，我的目标是确定近端的生态健身机制和最终的健身结果之间的相互作用的社会组成的人口和行为类型的个人。通过操纵社会环境，我的目标是在自然种群中进行实验研究，社会环境的组成如何影响个人一生的生殖成功，以及分配到不同的行为任务是否取决于个人行为类型和人口中其他个体的特征之间的相互作用。我打算利用电子监察系统量度自然界的一般活动模式，以量化行为类型。建议的研究模型是田野蟋蟀，蟋蟀campestris。该属的蟋蟀，如G. integer，G. bimaculatus和G. campestris已被广泛用作性选择，生活史和行为（也是动物个性）研究（包括我自己的工作）的模式生物，因此是解决所提出问题的理想选择。

Over the last decade, behavioural ecologists have become increasingly interested in consistent behavioural variation among individuals across time and contexts, called animal personalities in the behavioural ecology literature. Recent meta-analyses have revealed that consistent behavioural differences among individuals are general characteristics of animal populations in nature. In other words, different behavioural types coexist within populations. The social environment, i.e. interactions between conspecifics, represents one of the most dynamic environmental forces that individuals face, because the individuals own behaviour as well as conspecifics behaviours jointly defines the frequency and intensity of the interactions and thus, selection induced by the social environment. Overall fitness of an individual is expected to depend, not only on its own behavioural type, but also on the interaction between its own behavioural type and the composition of behavioural types in the population (i.e. its social environment). Surprisingly, despite the role of the social environment in competition, co-operation and mating, it has so far been largely overlooked and abovementioned predictions have not really been put to the test. In this project, I aim to identify the proximate ecological fitness mechanisms and the ultimate fitness consequences of the interaction between the social composition of a population and behavioural types of individuals. By manipulating the social environment, I aim to study experimentally in natural populations, how the composition of social environment affects an individuals life-time reproductive success, and whether allocation to different behavioural tasks depends on the interaction between an individuals behavioural type and the characteristics of other individuals in its population. I intend to quantify behavioural types by measuring general activity patterns in nature using electronic surveillance system. The proposed study model is the field cricket, Gryllus campestris. Crickets of this genus, such as G. integer, G. bimaculatus, and G. campestris, have been widely used as a model organism in sexual selection, life-history, and behavioural (also animal personality) studies including my own work, and therefore are ideal for addressing the proposed questions.