The socio-sexual environment and social group choice by males

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。这种变异对于选择和进化是必要的。尽管最近取得了一些进展，但仍有许多工作要做，以阐明产生和维持生物性状变异的机制，以及后者对选择和进化过程的影响。为了迎接这一挑战，我的研究计划探讨了个体动物之间的社会联系如何以及在多大程度上构建了它们的社会，反过来，社会环境如何影响它们的行为。社会介导的行为决定可以影响群体内的社会和性选择以及进化动态。******这项拟议的研究将调查雄性是否以及如何选择它们的社会环境，以及生态因素（如捕食风险）和人口因素（如群体规模和性别比例）在这些社会行为决定中可能发挥的作用。社会环境如何塑造社会行为的进化是目前进化和行为生态学领域相当感兴趣的问题。我们将使用一种小型热带鱼，特立尼达孔雀鱼（Poecilia reticulata）作为模型研究系统：(i)在特立尼达不同的自然环境中，在捕食风险和人口统计学上存在差异的孔雀鱼社会中，表征社会群体形成（融合）和分裂（裂变）的性质；（ii）测试基于雄性性吸引力的社会伴侣选择和非随机社会联系；（iii）调查雄性的社会群体选择是由交配机会还是避免捕食驱动的，还是两者之间的相互作用。孔雀鱼是这项研究的理想物种，因为它是一种高度社会化的物种，生活在由高度动态的、混合性别的个体组成的裂变融合社会中，它表现出一种混杂的交配系统和相互的配偶选择，而且雄性比雌性更具流动性，为了寻找配偶而频繁地在群体之间移动，还有其他原因。这种裂变-融合社会是非常适合用来研究社会性的生态和人口关系的系统，因为它们对变化的条件反应迅速。******这项拟议的研究将促进我们对男性之间的社会联系以及他们对社会群体的选择是如何以及在多大程度上受到他们的社会性环境的影响的理解。这项工作很重要，因为它对性选择和社会进化，更广泛地说，对合作、社会网络、信息和疾病在人群中的社会传播的进化具有重要意义。它将对学生进行研究方法方面的培训，并为他们从事教育、科学研究和政策、环境科学和卫生科学等方面的职业生涯做好准备

Within populations, individual animals (including humans) differ to varying degrees in their behaviour and reproductive success. Such variation is necessary for the action of selection and thus evolution. Despite recent advances, much work remains to elucidate the mechanisms generating and maintaining biological trait variation, and the consequences of the latter for the processes of selection and evolution. Towards meeting this challenge, my research programme explores how and to what extent social associations among individual animals structures their societies and, in turn, how the social environment influences their behaviour. Socially-mediated behavioural decisions can affect social and sexual selection and evolutionary dynamics within populations.******The proposed research will investigate whether and how males select their social environment and the roles that ecological (e.g. predation risk) and demographic factors (e.g. group size and sex ratio) may play in such social behavioural decisions. How the social environment shapes the evolution of social behaviour is currently of considerable interest in the fields of evolutionary and behavioural ecology. We will use a small tropical fish, the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata), as a model study system to: (i) characterize the nature of social group formation (fusion) and break-up (fission) within guppy societies in different natural environments in Trinidad that vary in predation risk and demographics, (ii) test for social partner choice and non-random social associations based on sexual attractiveness among males, and (iii) investigate whether social group choice in males is driven by mating opportunity or avoidance of predation, or an interaction between both. The guppy is an ideal species for the proposed research because it is a highly social species that lives in fission-fusion societies comprised of highly dynamic, mixed-sex groups of individuals, it exhibits a promiscuous mating system and mutual mate choice, and males are more mobile than females, moving frequently between groups in search of mates, among other reasons. Such fission-fusion societies are highly suitable systems for examining ecological and demographic correlates of sociality because they respond rapidly to changing conditions.******The proposed research will advance our understanding of how and to what extent social associations among males, and their choice of social groups, are mediated by their socio-sexual environment. This work is important because of its implications for sexual selection and social evolution, and more broadly for evolution of cooperation, social networks, and the social transmission of information and diseases within populations. It will train students in research methodology and prepare them for professional careers in education, science research and policy, environmental science, and health sciences, for example.*****