Studying the Social Determinants of Phenotype in group living animals
Vincent A. Viblanc
Kin selection & life history
Why do some individuals have preferences with whom they cooperate ? Why are others systematically nicer or less aggressive to specific peers but not to others ? Why do family clans evolve ? Part of the answer to these questions can be addressed within Hamilton's framework of kin selection
Kin selection is the idea that altruistic behavioural traits (traits favouring the reproduction of others at a cost of one’ s own reproduction) might evolve if the net fitness benefits of expressing cooperative traits, weighed by the degree of relatedness to the helped individual, outweigh the costs suffered by the helper. Simply put, this is because genes can pass to the next generation through one's own reproduction, but also in part through the reproduction of kin.
We are interested in kin selection in the Columbian ground squirrel, a system where females live in clans (matrilines), tolerating each other at relatively close distances and where aggression seems to be biased towards non-kin individuals.
We use long-term records of known genealogies to test for the underlying causes of nepotistic behaviour (behaviour that favours kin) and their ultimate consequences
In addition, we are interested in how life history strategies have evolved. This is to say we are studying individual life schedules of growth, fecundity, ageing and mortality, in regards to how females acquire and use-up energy throughout their life time - and how energy trade-offs between functions (e.g. reproduction vs. maintenance) may be affected by the social environment.
squirrel genealogies !
how cool ?!
squirrels here
ear tags so we can monitor them year after year ...
martini
male 2 years old
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Fitness
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Long-term field studies on rodents.
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​Maternal oxidative stress and reproduction: testing the constraint, cost and shielding hypotheses in a wild mammal
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Aggression in ground squirrels: relationships with age, kinship, energy allocation and fitness.
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Testing the reproductive and somatic trade-off in female Columbian ground squirrels.
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Kin effects on energy allocation in group-living ground squirrels.
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Kin selection in Columbian ground squirrels: direct and indirect individual fitness.
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Male reproductive tactics to increase paternity in the polygynandrous Columbian ground squirrel (Urocitellus columbianus).
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Kin selection in Columbian ground squirrels (Urocitellus columbianus): littermate kin provide individual fitness benefits.
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A selection of related science stuff
soon