Theoretical social evolution: predictions for fluctuating environments

影响行为者及其邻居的适应性的行为被称为“社会行为”。“我的长期目标是通过数学建模和计算机模拟的结合来了解生态学如何影响社会行为的进化。在短期内，我将专注于3类社会行为的演变，其首要目标是预测在时间和空间上波动的不可预测的环境条件的影响。我将研究的第一类社会行为涉及与合作繁殖系统有关的行为。在这些系统中，一些个体放弃繁殖机会，帮助抚养其他个体产生的后代。重点项目将探索合作育种如何像保险单一样帮助群体度过困难时期。这些项目将有助于我们理解社会复杂性是如何演变的，特别是当环境变得更加不稳定时。 我将要研究的第二类行为涉及到与子女向父母传递信号系统有关的行为。特别是，我想知道为什么我们在这些系统中看到如此巨大的变化，以及不可预测的环境条件在塑造它们方面所起的作用。我所揭示的答案将为我们指出父母和子女之间许多奇怪的交流方式背后的适应性意义。我要研究的第三类涉及性别分配，即父母在子女之间的资源分配。在这里，我将把来自理想理论场景的著名模型的预测与来自更现实的模拟的预测相匹配，我的目标是使前者在社会环境不断变化的情况下更有用。我还建议预测性别分配模式时，社会群体的遗传方面的个人素质不同，并调查如何性别分配策略可能会缓冲灭绝。这最后两个项目预计将影响保护受威胁脊椎动物物种的能力。 总之，这三类行为捕捉了个体生命中的关键时刻，从个体与父母之间的互动开始，到个体与自己后代之间的关系结束。因此，我的计划将提供一套全面的预测，关于面对不确定性时行为如何演变，并使我们能够更有效地管理生物多样性。 我过去6年的出版记录以及获得的奖项和荣誉表明，我完全有能力成功地开展拟议的工作。重要的是，拟议的工作与我培养高素质人才的计划密切相关。不同层次的学员（从本科到博士后）将积极参与我研究的各个方面。正如我过去的贡献所证明的那样，我的学员将获得所需的技能，他们将在包容性，多样性和具有挑战性的环境中这样做。

Behaviors that affect the fitness of both the actor and its neighbors are called 'social behaviors.' My long-term objective is to understand how ecology influences the evolution of social behavior using a mix of mathematical modeling and computer simulation. In the short-term I will focus on the evolution of 3 categories of social behavior, with the over-arching goal of predicting the impact of unpredictable environmental conditions that fluctuate in time and space. The first category of social behavior I will study involves ones related to cooperative-breeding systems. In these systems some individuals forgo breeding opportunities to help raise offspring produced by others. Key projects will explore how cooperative breeding acts like an insurance policy to see groups through difficult times. These projects will contribute to our understanding of how social complexity evolves, especially as the environment becomes more erratic.  The second category of behavior I will study involves ones related to offspring-to-parent signalling systems. In particular, I want to know why we see such tremendous variation in these systems, and about the role unpredictable environmental conditions play in shaping them. The answers I uncover will point us to the adaptive significance that underlies the many strange ways in which parents and offspring communicate. The third category I will study relates to sex allocation, i.e. the division of a parent's resources between its sons and daughters. Here, I will match predictions from well-known models of ideal theoretical scenarios with those from more realistic simulations, my goal being to make the former more useful in situations where social environments are in flux. I also propose to predict patterns of sex allocation when social groups vary with respect to heritable aspects of individual quality, and to investigate how sex allocation strategies might buffer against extinction. These final two projects are expected to impact abilities to conserve threatened vertebrate species. Together, the 3 categories of behavior capture critical times in an individual's life, beginning with interactions between the individual and its parent, and ending with the relationship between the individual and its own offspring. My program will, therefore, provide a comprehensive set of predictions about how behavior evolves in the face of uncertainty, and allow us to manage biodiversity more effectively. My track record of publication, as well as awards and honors received in the past 6 years, shows that I am well-positioned to carry out the proposed work successfully. Importantly, the proposed work is tightly linked to my plans for training highly-qualified personnel. Trainees at a various levels (from undergrad to postdoc) will be heavily involved in all aspects of my research. As evidenced by my past contributions, my trainees will acquire in-demand skills, and they will do so in an inclusive, diverse, and challenging setting.