CAREER: The Metabolic Basis of Individual Variation in Behavior

行为的个体差异为寻找食物、保卫领土和吸引配偶的能力差异奠定了基础，因此了解这些差异的原因很重要。能量代谢的变化可能起着重要的作用，因为能量驱动行为，并且对于需要峰值性能的行为特别重要，例如配偶吸引和逃离捕食者。然而，能量使用和行为之间的确切关系仍然知之甚少，特别是对于影响健身的能量消耗的自然行为。为了解决这一差距，该项目将使用重复测量树蛙的能量使用和信号行为，以确定这些特征如何相互关联，并允许这些青蛙执行极具挑战性的行为。这些测量将在不同温度下进行，以确定环境条件如何改变行为的能量成本，这可能有助于了解生物体如何应对气候变化。将研究能量和行为之间关系的遗传基础，以确定这些性状如何进化，并可能确定影响能量和性能的基因组重要区域。该项目的教育目标是建立科学能力和知识，目标是中学生的行为能量学知识、数据解释技能和对科学研究价值的欣赏，以及研究生发展他们的导师技能。行为表达的变化通常是由能量生理学的变化驱动的，但是这些特征是如何协变的，以及它们是在个体之间还是在个体内部水平上协变的，人们对此知之甚少，争论激烈，这是理解进化和生态结果的关键。该项目的目标是确定树蛙中竞争声信号个体差异的生理驱动因素，生理学如何影响环境变化中的信号可塑性，以及能量信号协方差的遗传基础。所提出的方法是1）确定信号传导中个体变化的能量基础，使用重复测量来量化静息代谢率和呼叫的代谢成本中的个体间和个体内方差分量，2）测试不同能量分配模型的竞争预测以确定信号传导可塑性中变化的代谢基础，3）发现环境温度变化对行为能量学的影响及其潜在的个体变异; 4）使用全基因组相关性度量来估计这些性状的遗传力和遗传协方差。总之，该项目将回答个体表型变异的机械基础上的基本问题，并通过研究一种能量昂贵、可重复和直接性选择的性状，代表了这些努力的重大进展。这项工作的科学发现将被用来建立一系列的课程计划，旨在向中学理科学生教授行为能量学的原则，并为与本科研究人员合作的研究生提供结构化的导师培训计划。 该项目由整合和有机系统部的行为系统集群和整合生态生理学计划以及刺激竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

Individual differences in behavior set the stage for differences in the ability to find food, defend territories and attract mates, so it is important to understand what causes these differences. Variation in energy metabolism probably plays an important role because energy drives behavior, and is especially important for behaviors requiring peak performance, such as mate attraction and escaping from predators. However, the exact relationship between energy use and behavior is still poorly understood, particularly for energetically costly natural behaviors that affect fitness. To address this gap, this project will use repeated measurements of energy use and signaling behavior in a treefrog to determine how these traits relate to one another and allow these frogs to perform extremely challenging behaviors. These measurements will be made under different temperatures to determine how environmental conditions could modify the energetic costs of behavior, which could help to understand how organisms will respond to climate change. The genetic basis of the relationship between energy and behavior will be investigated to determine how these traits could evolve and potentially identify important regions of the genome affecting energetics and performance. The educational goals of this project are to build scientific capacity and knowledge, targeting middle school students’ knowledge of behavioral energetics, data interpretation skills and appreciation for the value of scientific research, as well as graduate students developing their mentorship skills. Variation in behavioral expression is often driven by variation in energetic physiology, but how these traits covary and whether they do so at the among- or within-individual level is poorly known, actively debated, and key to understanding evolutionary and ecological outcomes. The goal of this project is to identify the physiological drivers of individual variation in competitive acoustic signals in treefrogs, how physiology affects signaling plasticity in the face of environmental change, and the genetic basis of energy-signal covariance. The proposed approach is to 1) determine the energetic basis for individual variation in signaling, using repeated measurements to quantify among- and within-individual variance components in resting metabolic rate and the metabolic cost of calling, 2) test the competing predictions of different energy allocation models to determine the metabolic basis of variation in signaling plasticity, 3) discover the consequences of environmental temperature variation on behavioral energetics and its underlying individual variation and 4) use genome-wide relatedness measures to estimate heritability and the genetic covariance of these traits. Together, this project will answer fundamental questions on the mechanistic basis of individual phenotypic variation and represents a major advance in these efforts by studying a trait that is energetically costly, repeatable, and under direct sexual selection. The scientific findings from this work will be used to build a series of lesson plans aimed at teaching principles of behavioral energetics to middle school science students, and to provide a structured mentorship training program for graduate students working with undergraduate researchers. This project is jointly funded by the Behavioral Systems Cluster and the Integrative Ecological Physiology program in the Division of Integrative and Organismal Systems, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.