Why Do Breeders Tolerate Non-breeders In Animal Societies?

在动物社会中，一些个体放弃自己的繁殖而帮助其他个体繁殖，这种现象长期困扰着进化生物学家。这种社会存在于各种各样的动物中，包括蚂蚁、蜜蜂、黄蜂、鸟类和哺乳动物（包括传统的人类社会）。人们尤其不了解的是，为什么繁殖个体在它们的社会群体中容忍非繁殖者，当它们不是帮手时。本项目以小丑海葵鱼为模型，关注这个问题。该项目包括实验室实验、实地实验和分子遗传学的结合，以测试关于生活在更大群体中的繁殖对潜在利益的几种假设。小丑海葵鱼已经成为社会系统调查的一个模型系统，因为它在实验室和现场的可驯服性，因此这项研究将告知我们对类似的社会群体的理解，这些群体在实验上不太容易驯服。研究目标与多个更广泛的影响活动相结合。本科生和研究生将接受各种可转移技能的培训，如实验设计、数据收集、数据管理、统计建模和科学交流，同时也学习动物行为。来自STEM中代表性不足群体的高中生将被作为项目实习生接待，并将参与科学过程的各个方面。此外，一本针对青少年读者的拟议书将介绍动物行为研究和动物行为研究人员的简介，以提高公众对这一领域的理解。动物社会是最显著的进化产物之一，自从达尔文指出社会的某些特征（例如，非繁殖和帮助策略）给自然选择理论带来的困难以来，动物社会一直是进化论检验的焦点。为了充分理解这些社会，必须理解为什么非育种者容忍他们的处境，为什么育种者容忍非育种者。通常，繁殖者容忍非繁殖者，因为他们帮助提供后代或繁殖者自己，但在一些规范的脊椎动物社会中，繁殖者从非繁殖者身上获得的好处并不明显。本提案的首要目标是解决这一悖论，调查为什么繁殖者容忍小丑海蜇（Amphiprion percula）中的非繁殖者，这已经成为海洋科学的模型系统。该项目将评估为何育种者会容忍非育种者的三种替代假设的支持度，1)作为一种防止伴侣损失的下注对冲策略；2)它们提供的亲属选择效益较弱；3)它们提供互惠（海葵）介导的利益。该项目将结合长期现场试验和实验室试验来评估这些替代方案。总之，拟议的研究将调查为什么在一个社会中繁殖者容忍非繁殖者，而繁殖者从非繁殖者那里获得的好处是隐藏的，为社会进化提供了新的见解。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。

Animal societies in which some individuals forgo their own reproduction and help others to reproduce have long puzzled evolutionary biologists. Such societies are found in a wide variety of animals including ants, bees, wasps, birds, and mammals (including traditional human societies). What is particularly poorly understood is why breeding individuals tolerate non-breeders in their social groups when they are not helpers. This project focuses on this question using clown anemonefish as a model. The project involves a combination of laboratory experiments, field experiments, and molecular genetics to test several hypotheses about the potential benefits to the breeding pair of living in a larger group. The clown anemonefish has become a model system for investigations of social systems due to its tractability in the laboratory and in the field thus this study will inform our understanding of similar social groups which are much less experimentally tractable. The research objectives are integrated with multiple broader impact activities. Undergraduates and graduate students will be trained in various transferable skills, such as experimental design, data collection, data management, statistical modeling, and scientific communication while also learning about animal behavior. High school students from groups underrepresented in STEM will be hosted as project interns and will participate in all aspects of the scientific process. In addition, a proposed book, targeted at a teenage audience, will present animal behavior research and profile animal behavior researchers to improve the general public’s understanding of this field. Animal societies are one of the most remarkable products of evolution, and they have been a focus for tests of evolutionary theory ever since Darwin pointed out the difficulties that some features of societies (e.g., non-breeding and helping strategies) posed for the theory of natural selection. To fully understand these societies, it must be understood both why non-breeders tolerate their situation and why breeders tolerate non-breeders. Frequently, breeders tolerate non-breeders because they help provision offspring or the breeders themselves, but in some canonical vertebrate societies the benefits that breeders accrue from non-breeders are not obvious. The overarching objective of this proposal is to resolve this paradox, investigating why breeders tolerate non-breeders in the clown anemonefish (Amphiprion percula), which has emerged as a model system for marine science. The project will evaluate support for three alternative hypotheses for why breeders will tolerate non-breeders, 1) as a bet-hedging strategy against partner loss; 2) that they provide weak kin-selected benefits; and 3) that they provide mutualist (anemone)-mediated benefits. The project will combine long-term field experiments and laboratory experiments to evaluate these alternatives. In sum, the proposed research will investigate why breeders tolerate non-breeders in societies where the benefits that breeders accrue from non-breeders are hidden, providing new insights into social evolution.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.