Social contexts and behavioural decisions in fishes

在种群中，个体动物（包括人类）在行为和繁殖成功率方面存在不同程度的差异。尽管最近取得了一些进展，但仍有许多工作要做，以阐明产生和维持这种变异的机制，以及后者对选择和进化过程的影响。为了应对这一挑战，目前提出的研究目标是在短期内确定社会背景（社会因素）对生活在社会群体中的个人行为决策的影响程度。更具体地说，我建议调查某些重要社会因素对以下方面的潜在影响：(1)雌性模仿其他雌性观察到的配偶选择的倾向（即配偶选择复制行为），从而影响到性选择的强度；(2)个体之间特定社会联系的形成和维持，以及这种联系对自然种群中社会网络和性选择强度的影响；(3)冒险行为（即性行为）。“胆识”)，通过探索新环境和接近捕食者的倾向，以及胆识与个体适应性相关因素（如增长率）之间的关系来衡量。我将在实验室和实地使用一些模型鱼类和实验和比较方法，来测试主要基于当代性选择、社会学习和行为综合症理论的关于情境依赖行为的假设。拟议的研究将有助于更全面地了解自然选择和性选择是如何由社会因素介导的，以及它们如何相互作用以形成行为并保持群体内行为的变化。因此，这项研究将进一步深入了解动物行为进化的过程。

Within populations, individual animals (including humans) differ to varying degrees in their behaviour and reproductive success.  Despite recent advances, much work remains to elucidate the mechanisms generating and maintaining such variation, and the consequences of the latter for the processes of selection and evolution.  Towards meeting this challenge, the current proposed research aims in the short term to ascertain the extent to which social context (social factors) influences the behavioural decisions of individuals that live in social groups.  More specifically, I propose to investigate the potential influences of certain important social factors on: (i) the tendency of females to copy the observed mate choice of other females (i.e. mate-choice copying behaviour) and thereby on the intensity of sexual selection, (ii) the formation and maintenance of particular social associations among individuals and the implications of such associations for social networks in natural populations and for the intensity of sexual selection, and (iii) risk-taking behaviour (i.e. "boldness"), as measured by tendency to explore novel environments and approach predators, and the relationships between boldness and correlates of individual fitness (e.g. growth rate).I will use a number of model fish species and the experimental and comparative approaches, in both the laboratory and field, to test hypotheses about context-dependent behaviour that are based mainly on contemporary sexual selection, social learning, and behavioural syndrome theories.  The proposed research will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how natural and sexual selection are mediated by social factors and how they interact to shape behaviour and maintain variation in behaviour within populations.  As such, this research will provide further insights into the processes by which animal behaviour evolves.