RoL: When does learning facilitate speciation by sexual selection?

性选择在物种形成过程中的作用一直存在争议，部分原因是缺乏对理论模型中提出的机制的自然观察。这个项目将填补我们对物种形成的理解的空白，通过确定学习的条件，这是许多动物类群生殖行为发展的共同过程，可能有助于物种形成。该项目的研究将实验联系起来，以了解交配行为是如何形成的，并建立在这些发现的基础上，在种群和不同谱系的水平上进行预测。行为实验的对象是草莓毒蛙，这是一种在颜色上表现出惊人多样性的物种，并且已知颜色识别行为是通过学习形成的。在每个目标中开发的理论模型将通过询问在其他动物中发现的不同类型的交配特征和学习如何影响物种形成的可能性来扩大该项目的发现。该项目在教育和推广方面的目标包括培训多样化的学生群体，继续参与公民科学计划，以及开发旨在教授与研究相关的生物学概念的K-12课程，包括进化，动物行为，以及影响生物多样性的因素。该项目的第一个目标是将饲养实验和行为分析与种群-遗传建模，询问从不同导师（以及在不同发育阶段）学习如何影响行为生殖隔离的可能性。第二个目标将使用行为分析，再加上理论建模，以询问如何在动物的交配性状的感知变化，以及这些交配性状的遗传结构，相互作用，影响物种形成的可能性。该项目的最终目标将使用一个实地研究，加上第三个理论模型，以调查学习行为偏差的强度的演变如何影响物种形成的可能性。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The role of sexual selection in the process of speciation has been long debated, in part due to a lack of observations in nature for the mechanisms that have been proposed in theoretical models. This project will fill gaps in our understanding of speciation by identifying the conditions under which learning, a process common to the development of reproductive behaviors in many animal taxa, may facilitate speciation. The research in this project links experiments to understand how mating behaviors are formed with models that build on those findings to make predictions at the level of populations and diverging lineages. The subject of the behavioral experiments is the strawberry poison frog, a species that shows striking diversity in coloration and for which color-assortative behaviors are known to be shaped by learning. The theoretical models developed in each objective will broaden the project’s findings by asking how different types of mating traits and learning that are found in other animals affect the likelihood of speciation. The project’s objectives in education and outreach include training a diverse group of students, continuing involvement with citizen science programs and development of K-12 curricula aimed at teaching concepts in biology related to the research, including evolution, animal behavior, and the factors that impact biodiversity.The project’s first objective will integrate a rearing experiment and behavioral assays with population-genetic modeling to ask how learning from different tutors (and at different stages in development) affects the likelihood of behavioral reproductive isolation. The second objective will use a behavioral assay, coupled with theoretical modeling, to ask how variation in an animal’s perception of mating traits, and the genetic architecture that underlies those mating traits, interact to affect the likelihood of speciation. The project’s final objective will use a field study, coupled with a third theoretical model, to investigate how evolution of the strength of learned behavioral biases impacts the likelihood of speciation.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.