Collaborative Research: NSF-BSF: Neural and perceptual mechanisms that bias mate choice in complex signaling environments

合作研究：NSF-BSF：复杂信号环境中影响择偶选择的神经和感知机制

• 批准号: 2154203
• 负责人: Kim Hoke
• 金额: $ 110.62万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2026-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2154203&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; NSF; BSF; Neural

Humans and other animals often communicate in complex social environments in which multiple individuals produce series of repeated vocalizations, and listeners respond after assessing signal properties that emerge over long times scales. How listeners track individual signalers through time will determine outcomes of many consequential decisions, especially if too many competing signalers create confusion on the part of listeners. This project investigates the extent to which female frogs choose mates using neural mechanisms that are susceptible versus resistant to confusion to understand how neural mechanisms in listeners shape the evolution of vocal behavior. The research focuses on Cope’s gray treefrog, Hyla chrysoscelis, a species in which prior work shows that females prefer males that produce vocal mating calls at faster and more regular rates. The proposed aims will provide a mechanistic view of the sensory and perceptual biases frequently proposed to impact signaling and mate choice. The aims develop new technological approaches to characterize behavioral responses and record neural activity that will enable new insights into how neural circuits in a listener can track an individual signaler in noisy environments. This project will provide training and career opportunities for postdoctoral fellows who identify as members of historically excluded groups in STEM and for up to 12 undergraduate students each year. Finally, the project will extend a highly successful educational game that teaches undergraduates the fundamentals of neural decision making by having students build creatures with simple neural circuits. This proposal integrates behavioral and neural approaches to determine how receivers evaluate a series of signals in complex signaling environments. Aim 1 will determine how female preferences for male call rate and regularity depend on the number of competing signalers using classical behavioral phonotaxis measures of preference. Aim 2 will use new sensor technology that measures detailed movement dynamics to study the perceptual processes females employ when assessing call rate and regularity. Aim 3 will leverage newly developed flexible electrodes to evaluate how female preferences for series of calls are dynamically coded by neural circuits in a major sensory-motor midbrain region. If the proposed research finds that sexual selection is reduced in complex acoustic environments, the experiments will identify neural mechanisms that constrain the ability to follow signal series through time. Alternatively, if sexual selection operates effectively even with many signalers present, the experiments will identify behavioral and neural mechanisms that support the ability of females to exhibit mate preferences even in active leks. In addition to opening new paths of inquiry into how the capabilities or constraints of neural processing impact mate choice, this project seeks to resolve neuroscience studies demonstrating that repeated stimuli tend to elicit weaker sensory responses over time with behavioral ecological models for sensory and perceptual biases that posit that preferred mating signals are those that that elicit stronger sensory responses in receivers. Probing the intersection of these conflicting expectations will help achieve greater consilience between behavioral ecological and neurobiological approaches to understanding animal behavior.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.

人类和其他动物经常在复杂的社交环境中进行交流，其中多个人会产生一系列重复的发声，听众在评估长期尺度上出现的信号特性后做出了响应。听众如何通过时间跟踪单个信号者将确定许多结果决策的结果，尤其是如果竞争过多的信号者会造成听众的混乱。该项目研究了女性青蛙使用易感与抗混淆的神经机制选择伴侣的程度，以了解听众中的神经元机制如何塑造声音行为的演变。该研究的重点是Cope的灰色树蛙Hyla Chrysoscelis，该物种先前的工作表明，女性更喜欢以更快和更正常的速度产生声音交配的男性。提出的目标将提供经常提出的感官和感知偏见的机械视图，以影响信号传导和伴侣选择。该目标开发了新的技术方法来表征行为响应并记录神经元活动，这将使人们能够对听众中的神经元电路进行新的见解，如何在噪声环境中跟踪单个信号器。该项目将为博士后研究员提供培训和职业机会，他们确定为STEM中历史上排除的小组的成员，每年有多达12名本科生。最后，该项目将扩展一个非常成功的教育游戏，通过让学生用简单的神经元电路建立创作来教授神经决策的基础知识。该建议集成了行为和神经元方法，以确定接收器如何评估复杂信号环境中的一系列信号。 AIM 1将确定女性对男性呼叫率和规律性的偏好如何取决于偏好的经典行为音调测量值。 AIM 2将使用新的传感器技术来衡量详细的运动动力学来研究女性在评估呼叫率和规律性时采用的感知过程。 AIM 3将利用新开发的柔性电极来评估女性对呼叫系列的偏好是如何通过主要感觉运动中脑区域中神经回路动态编码的。如果拟议的研究发现在复杂的声学环境中性选择会减少，那么实验将确定神经机制，这些神经机制限制了通过时间遵循信号序列的能力。替代性选择有效地运作，即使存在许多信号器，实验将确定行为和神经元机制，以支持女性的能力，即使在有活跃的活动范围内表现出女性的能力。除了开辟有关神经处理影响伴侣选择的能力或约束如何选择的新探究途径外，该项目试图解决神经科学研究，表明反复的刺激倾向于随着时间的推移而产生较弱的感觉反应，而行为生态模型对感官和感知的偏见，这种积极的偏见是那些偏好的交配效果，这些偏好是强大的感应响应的，这些偏见是相互响应的。探讨这些相互矛盾的期望的交汇处将有助于在理解动物行为的行为生态学和神经生物学方法之间取得更大的一致性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用该基金会的知识分子的优点和更广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务，并被认为是诚实的支持。