The social lives of rabbits: understanding the structure and consequences of sociality (ref: 4611)

最近的研究发现，包括人类在内的一些物种的社会结构和适应性之间存在联系。然而，社会结构影响健康的途径在很大程度上仍然未知。已经提出了几个：例如，关系良好的个人可能处于更好的位置来学习有益的社会信息，或者有更可靠的合作伙伴——但关系良好的个人也可能更容易感染社会传播疾病。解开社会结构影响适应性的途径是社会进化中一个重要的突出问题。迄今为止，回答这个问题的尝试主要集中在长寿、繁殖缓慢的物种上，比如灵长类动物和鲸目动物。但是社会性在自然界中是广泛存在的，社会环境如何影响具有不同生活史的其他分类群的适应性仍然不清楚。进入兔子。欧洲兔（Oryctolagus cuniculus）是专社会性的，但它们的社会环境结构以及它如何影响它们，在很大程度上仍然未知。它们的生命周期短，繁殖迅速，这使它们成为研究社会结构和适应性之间联系的理想系统。在这个项目中，学生将使用居住在埃克塞特大学校园的欧洲兔子种群来了解社会性影响快速生活的强制性社会性哺乳动物生存的机制。项目目的和方法该项目将包括在埃克塞特大学斯特里汉姆校区进行实地考察。兔子将分别使用耳标和PIT标签进行标记。通过观察野外被标记的兔子的行为，我们建立了一幅兔子个体空间利用和社会互动的画面。还有可能探索使用诸如接近标签之类的技术来获得更详细的社交数据。在整个研究过程中，学生将监测种群中所有的出生和死亡，然后我们可以将其与社会结构、个体兔子的生态联系起来，以了解在一个新的野外系统中，社会结构和适应性的机制。虽然该项目有几个目标，因为该项目将涉及建立一个新的领域系统，但学生有相当大的空间去探索其他问题和方向，因为它们出现了。具体Objectives1。研究欧洲兔的社会结构，特别是社会网络结构。量化兔子的社会环境如何与生态环境的空间结构相联系，特别是沃伦的存在和捕食者的分布。3. 确定欧洲兔的社会结构和社会决策如何影响它们的适应性（例如生存和繁殖成功）。

Project BackgroundRecent research has found connections between social structure and fitness in several species, including humans. However, the pathways by which social structure effects fitness remain largely unknown. Several have been proposed: for example well-connected individuals could be in a better position to learn beneficial social information, or have more reliable cooperative partners- but well-connected individuals may also be more likely to contract socially transmitted diseases. Disentangling the pathways by which social structure effects fitness is a major outstanding question in social evolution. Attempts to answer this question have, to date, focussed on long-lived slow-reproducing species such as primates and cetaceans. But sociality is widespread in nature and remains unclear how the social environment can affect fitness in other taxa with different life histories. Enter rabbits. European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are obligately social, but the structure of their social environment, and how it affects them, remains largely unknown. They also have a fast life-history with short lifespans are rapid reproduction, making them the ideal system to investigate the links between social structure and fitness. In this project a student will use the European rabbit population inhabiting the University of Exeter Campus to understand the mechanisms by which sociality can affect survival in a fast-living obligatory social mammal.Project Aims and MethodsThe project will involve fieldwork on the University of Exeter Streatham campus. Rabbits will be individually marked using ear tags and PIT tags. By observing the behaviour of marked rabbits in the wild we build up a picture of the space use and social interactions of individual rabbits. There is also the potential to explore the use of technology such as proximity tags to get more detailed social data. Over the course of the study the student will monitor all births and deaths in the population which we can then link to social structure, ecology of the individual rabbits to understand the mechanisms linked social structure and fitness in a novel field system. Although the project has several aims because the project will involve setting up a new field system there is considerable scope for the student to explore other questions and directions as they arise. Specific Objectives1. Investigate the social structure and particularly the social network structure of European rabbits 2. Quantify how the social environment of rabbits is linked to the spatial structure of the ecological environment, particularly the presence of warrens and the distribution of predators. 3. Establish how the social structure and social decisions of European rabbits influence their fitness (e.g. survival and reproductive success).