OPUS: PRAIRIE DOG SOCIETIES: SYNTHESIS OF 45 YEARS OF RESEARCH ON BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY

University Of Maryland Center For Environmental Sciences, Cambridge MD

Investigators

Abstract

This project will synthesize research on the ecology and social behavior of four species of prairie dogs. The focus will be three factors that affect not only prairie dogs, but also hundreds of other vertebrate social species: non-parental infanticide, alarm calling, and polyandry (a single female mating with two or more males). The synthesis will examine how these factors have influenced the costs and benefits of social life within prairie dog colonies. Two products of the research will result: a book that will present the synthesis to a wide scientific audience and a website featuring decades of images, audio recordings, videos, and datasets directed at high school students, undergraduates, and other curious naturalists of all ages. Finally, the researcher will continue to collaborate with four television companies - including National Geographic Television - that have recently documented his research with prairie dogs. This research provides insights into the evolution of common, but poorly understood, social behaviors in mammals; the products will be of broad interest to behavioral ecologists, wildlife managers, and conservation biologists. Social species exhibit several initially puzzling behaviors, and this project aims to pull together four decades of data on prairie dog species to understand three such behaviors: non-parental infanticide, alarm calling, and polyandry. Each of these behaviors seems detrimental to fitness on the surface and hence requires focused investigation to understand. This project will leverage long term data following the behavior of individuals over their lifetime and their reproductive success to understand these phenomena. In particular, the synthesis will include new analyses focused on the role of colony density on the frequency of infanticide, the costs and benefits to an individual that gives an alarm call, which may draw a predator's attention, and the costs and benefits of multiple matings by females. This will be the first study to elucidate the consistency and contingency of these behaviors over a life time and the consequences for fitness. The analyses will clarify the maintenance of coloniality despite these apparent costs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.