DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Genetic Polymorphism in Behavioral Traits in a Bird with Maltreatment of Young

Sula granti, a long-lived seabird, offers a unique opportunity to study the underlying mechanisms of physical and social maltreatment by non-parents, in nature. Non-breeding adults show a directed and intense social interest (affiliative, aggressive, and/or reproductive) in unrelated young. This is a unique behavioral quality among vertebrates, though inappropriate human adult reproductive behavior directed toward non-related pre-pubertal or under-age young is perhaps the most similar such vertebrate behavior. Sula granti maltreatment behavior is a promising new model system for early social trauma because it shares several features with human child abuse, including intergenerational transmission through a 'cycle of violence', the relationship between age and vulnerability, frequency of social maltreatment episodes, and evidence for transmission of maltreatment through both early social trauma and long term neuroendocrine organizational effects. The researchers will investigate interactions between genetic polymorphisms and rearing environment that may influence intergenerational transmission of this behavior and other aspects of personality (e.g., shyness, aggression, anxiety/neuroticism). It is expected that some variants of specific genes will buffer individuals from the effects of early maltreatment, reducing the probability of displaying abusive and/or anxiety-related behavior as an adult. This research will be conducted on a wild population under natural conditions, will be the first comprehensive evaluation of the relative separate and combined predictive ability of multiple genes and gene x environment interactions, and will investigate the associations between genetics, animal behavior, and physiological response to early trauma which may be analogous between, or alternatively predate the divergence of, mammalian and avian lineages. The researchers and Avian Biology undergraduate students will use local school connections developed through the Wake Forest University International Baccalaureate Partnership to take their results into local high school biology classes to address North Carolina Educational Standard 4.05 on innate, learned, and social animal behavior.