Testing hypotheses of social priming in females

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

Non-technical Abstract: Social competition among males is thought to induce a coordinated set of behavioral and physiological responses that are adaptive for continued success during competition. It is far less clear how these processes operate in females, despite emerging evidence that female competition is widespread and beneficial in the animal kingdom. This research will identify whether and how social competition "primes" (or adaptively prepares) females for future competition. The subject is a cavity-nesting female songbird, the tree swallow, for which social challenges from rivals pose a very real threat to survival and reproduction. Using experimental manipulations that generate competition in the wild, this research will investigate how social competition alters female aggression, maternal care, and immune function, including tools and approaches that connect multiple levels of biological organization, from gene expression, to behavior and physiology, to reproductive fitness. Research on female aggression is an excellent platform for outreach to women and girls in science, and this will be highlighted in hands-on modules for several community organizations near Indiana University's campus, with an emphasis on the plight of cavity nesting birds and the effects of habitat loss on their behavior. The development of an interactive data-logging nestbox features prominently in these efforts. This project will also provide unique training for undergraduates in animal behavior, including field, lab, and programming skills, public speaking, ethics, and critical thinking. The primary avenue for training is a summer undergraduate research program that targets groups underrepresented in the sciences. Technical Abstract: The overall goal of this research is to determine how social challenges prepare females for future social instability, particularly how brain and periphery are coordinated in their phenotypic and transcriptomic responses. The working hypotheses are that social challenges prime females for success in future competition, favoring greater aggression at the expense of parenting and self-maintenance, and that these effects are coordinated by tissue-level changes in specific G protein-coupled receptor signaling systems that are not as costly to females as the male-typical social modulation of testosterone. Using experimental manipulations that generate true social instability in the wild, this research will (1) quantify how social instability alters aggression and maternal care, (2) quantify how the social environment affects inflammatory function, as an integrated measure of immune system readiness that may be relevant during competition, and (3) identify and experimentally perturb socially sensitive gene networks in neural and peripheral tissues, including one tissue that can be re-sampled without euthanasia (blood). This research is therefore an essential step in organismal biology's goal of predicting responses to diverse environmental challenges, and it will advance the development of broadly applicable models of behavioral plasticity that integrate function with mechanism. A whole-organism approach will allow new perspectives on phenotypic and genomic flexibility, where insights to be gained by joint consideration of brain and periphery have yet to be fully realized. These studies offer an extraordinary opportunity for substantive advances in understanding the mechanisms, phenotypic consequences, and adaptive significance of organismal responses to ecologically relevant behavioral challenges.