Collaborative Research: NSF-BSF: Neural and perceptual mechanisms that bias mate choice in complex signaling environments

人类和其他动物经常在复杂的社会环境中交流，在这个环境中，多个人发出一系列重复的发声，听者在评估了长时间尺度上出现的信号特性后做出反应。听众如何随着时间的推移跟踪单个信号者将决定许多后续决定的结果，特别是如果太多的竞争信号者造成听者的困惑。这个项目调查了雌性青蛙选择配偶的程度，使用了容易混淆和抵抗混淆的神经机制，以了解听者的神经机制如何塑造发声行为的进化。这项研究的重点是科普的灰色树蛙Hyla chrysoscelis，此前的研究表明，在这种物种中，雌性更喜欢以更快、更规则的速度发出交配叫声的雄性。提出的目标将提供一个机械的观点，经常被认为影响信号和配偶选择的感觉和知觉偏差。这些目标开发了新的技术方法来表征行为反应并记录神经活动，这将使人们能够对收听者的神经电路如何在嘈杂环境中跟踪单个信号者提供新的见解。该项目将为在STEM中被视为历史上被排除的群体成员的博士后研究员提供培训和职业机会，每年最多为12名本科生提供培训和就业机会。最后，该项目将扩展一个非常成功的教育游戏，通过让学生用简单的神经电路建立生物，向本科生传授神经决策的基础知识。这一建议结合了行为和神经方法，以确定接收者如何在复杂的信号环境中评估一系列信号。目标1将确定女性对男性呼叫率和规律性的偏好如何取决于使用经典行为趋音性偏好测量的竞争信号者的数量。目标2将使用新的传感器技术来测量详细的运动动力学，以研究女性在评估呼叫率和规律性时使用的感知过程。Aim 3将利用新开发的柔性电极来评估女性对一系列呼叫的偏好是如何由主要感觉-运动中脑区的神经电路动态编码的。如果这项拟议中的研究发现，在复杂的声学环境中，性选择会减少，那么这些实验将确定限制信号序列随时间变化的能力的神经机制。或者，如果性选择在许多信号者在场的情况下仍然有效地运行，实验将识别支持雌性即使在活跃的性欲中也表现出配偶偏好的能力的行为和神经机制。除了开辟探索神经处理能力或限制如何影响配偶选择的新途径外，该项目还试图解决神经科学研究，这些研究表明，随着时间的推移，重复刺激往往会引发较弱的感觉反应，而感觉和知觉偏差的行为生态模型认为，首选的交配信号是那些在接受者中引发更强感觉反应的信号。探索这些相互冲突的期望的交集将有助于在理解动物行为的行为生态学和神经生物学方法之间实现更大的一致性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Humans and other animals often communicate in complex social environments in which multiple individuals produce series of repeated vocalizations, and listeners respond after assessing signal properties that emerge over long times scales. How listeners track individual signalers through time will determine outcomes of many consequential decisions, especially if too many competing signalers create confusion on the part of listeners. This project investigates the extent to which female frogs choose mates using neural mechanisms that are susceptible versus resistant to confusion to understand how neural mechanisms in listeners shape the evolution of vocal behavior. The research focuses on Cope’s gray treefrog, Hyla chrysoscelis, a species in which prior work shows that females prefer males that produce vocal mating calls at faster and more regular rates. The proposed aims will provide a mechanistic view of the sensory and perceptual biases frequently proposed to impact signaling and mate choice. The aims develop new technological approaches to characterize behavioral responses and record neural activity that will enable new insights into how neural circuits in a listener can track an individual signaler in noisy environments. This project will provide training and career opportunities for postdoctoral fellows who identify as members of historically excluded groups in STEM and for up to 12 undergraduate students each year. Finally, the project will extend a highly successful educational game that teaches undergraduates the fundamentals of neural decision making by having students build creatures with simple neural circuits. This proposal integrates behavioral and neural approaches to determine how receivers evaluate a series of signals in complex signaling environments. Aim 1 will determine how female preferences for male call rate and regularity depend on the number of competing signalers using classical behavioral phonotaxis measures of preference. Aim 2 will use new sensor technology that measures detailed movement dynamics to study the perceptual processes females employ when assessing call rate and regularity. Aim 3 will leverage newly developed flexible electrodes to evaluate how female preferences for series of calls are dynamically coded by neural circuits in a major sensory-motor midbrain region. If the proposed research finds that sexual selection is reduced in complex acoustic environments, the experiments will identify neural mechanisms that constrain the ability to follow signal series through time. Alternatively, if sexual selection operates effectively even with many signalers present, the experiments will identify behavioral and neural mechanisms that support the ability of females to exhibit mate preferences even in active leks. In addition to opening new paths of inquiry into how the capabilities or constraints of neural processing impact mate choice, this project seeks to resolve neuroscience studies demonstrating that repeated stimuli tend to elicit weaker sensory responses over time with behavioral ecological models for sensory and perceptual biases that posit that preferred mating signals are those that that elicit stronger sensory responses in receivers. Probing the intersection of these conflicting expectations will help achieve greater consilience between behavioral ecological and neurobiological approaches to understanding animal behavior.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.