IRES: Maternal Effects on Ecology, Sociality, and Fitness in a Long-Lived Mammal

Georgetown University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Maternal Effects on Ecology, Sociality, and Fitness in a Long-Lived Mammal Non-technical Abstract: This project provides students with an outstanding research experience in which they can ask and answer significant questions concerning how genetic, social, and ecological factors interact to shape evolutionary processes and fitness. Through data collection on wild Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) at a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Shark Bay, Australia and genetic sample processing and analysis at the University of the Sunshine Coast's GenEcology Research Centre in Queensland, Australia, students will gain hands on experience performing research as part of an international, long-term collaboration. Each student will be involved through 1 of 3 cohorts and focus on a specific theme centered around the overall topic of maternal influence on behavior and fitness. Students in cohorts 1 and 2 will focus on ecological maternal inheritance and its fitness consequences, and social maternal inheritance and its fitness consequences, respectively, whereas those in cohort 3 will examine how these maternal influences and their fitness consequences extend beyond a single generation within the maternal genetic line. Through this project, students will be contributing to one of the most comprehensive and detailed long-term studies of a wild mammal in an exciting intellectual, cultural, and physical environment. This IRES will directly support at least 4 graduate and 9 undergraduate students. Technical Abstract: Our primary goal is to provide students with an outstanding research experience in which they can ask and answer significant questions in biology. To do this, students will examine the fitness consequences of inherited genetic, ecological and social traits in wild bottlenose dolphins in collaboration with scientists at the University of the Sunshine Coast GenEcology Research Centre in Queensland, Australia and in the field at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Shark Bay, Australia. Students will contribute to one of the most comprehensive and detailed long-term studies of a wild mammal in an exciting intellectual, cultural, and physical environment. At the core of this work is trying to understand how genetic, social and ecological factors shape evolutionary processes and fitness. By focusing on well-known dolphins, students can broadly investigate how genetic diversity maps onto variation in social and ecological patterns. Such individual variation is increasingly recognized for its importance in ecological and evolutionary dynamics. However, to date, data on how such variations in social behavior and ecology are transmitted, and how they interact with genetic background are limited. Understanding this relationship is crucial, particularly for species that show high levels of variation like bottlenose dolphins. Shark Bay bottlenose dolphins have well-documented social and ecological variation; some individuals are highly social while others live rather solitary lives; some use all habitats, while others specialize in one or two, with similar variation in home range size and foraging tactics. Lifetime fitness variation is substantial, where 24.3% of females do not produce surviving calves. In this study, students will draw on our longitudinal data and collect new data to empirically address their own research questions regarding the relationship between sociality, ecology, and genetic heritage. This project was funded by the IRES program of NSF Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE).