Sexual selection, life history and ecological immunology

个人显然受益于与寄生虫和病原体的斗争。然而，进化生物学的一个中心问题是解释为什么宿主仍然容易受到疾病的影响，以及为什么免疫反应在种群、物种和环境中有所不同。我们现在意识到，这种变化很大程度上植根于免疫的成本：与疾病作斗争会对个人的资源库造成巨大的消耗，这需要对免疫功能进行投资，以权衡其他关键的健康组成部分(例如生长和繁殖)。尽管投资策略依赖于个体因素(如营养条件、性别和基因)、交配系统、社会/交配环境和进化史，但它们没有得到应有的经验关注。我们的研究将确定这些因素在决定个人的资源分配策略中所起的作用，并解释为什么免疫反应因种群、物种和情况而异。具体地说，我们将确定进化免疫系统对生殖(和其他健康特征)的特定性别进化成本。我们还将描述个体素质和社会环境在发育过程中对成人免疫分配和其他与健康相关的特征的相互作用。我们的研究将阐明部署免疫系统对生殖(和其他健康特征)造成的性别特有的遗传成本。最后，我们将解释男性吸引力如何调节免疫和生殖之间的权衡，以及配偶选择是否为女性提供物质或遗传(即基因上更好的后代)健康益处。实现这些研究目标将促进和改变我们对免疫学的理解。这项拟议的研究将培养3名新的博士和1名新的硕士。(以及几个理科学士学位)让学生了解进化生态学的概念和过程，并为他们提供最先进的领域、实验室、分析和统计技术方面的专门知识和技能。

Individuals clearly benefit from combating parasites and pathogens. A central problem in evolutionary biology, however, is explaining why hosts remain susceptible to disease and why immune responses vary across populations, species and environments. We are now realizing that much of this variation is rooted in the costs of immunity: fighting disease imposes a significant drain on an individual’s resource pool that requires investment in immune function to trade off against other critical fitness components (e.g. growth and reproduction). Although investment strategies are dependent on individual factors (e.g. nutritional condition, sex, and genotype), mating system, social/mating environment, and evolutionary history, they have not received the empirical attention that they deserve. Our research will identify the role that these factors play in determining an individual’s resource allocation strategy and explain why immune responses vary across populations, species and situations. Specifically, we will identify the sex-specific evolutionary costs to reproduction (and other fitness traits) of evolving an immune system. We will also describe the interaction between individual quality and social environment during development on allocation to adult immunity and other fitness-related traits. Our research will elucidate the sex-specific genetic costs to reproduction (and other fitness traits) of deploying the immune system. Finally, we will explain how male attractiveness mediates trade-offs between immunity and reproduction, and whether mate choice provides females with material or genetic (i.e. genetically better offspring) fitness benefits. Achieving these research goals will advance and transform our understanding of immunology. The proposed research will train 3 new PhD and one new M.Sc. (as well as several B.Sc.) students in the concepts and processes of evolutionary ecology and provide them with particular expertise and skills in state-of-the art field, laboratory, analytical and statistical techniques.