This award supports a conference symposium entitled ?Sending and Receiving Signals: Endocrine Modulation of Social Communication? scheduled to occur in Washington D.C. at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB). Animal communication is vital to survival, reproduction, and species persistence, but little is known about how an individual?s sensory and signaling abilities may change based on their internal hormonal state. This symposium brings together diverse experts working at the frontiers of research on this topic in various animals and sensory systems to disseminate cutting-edge research via presentations, promote discussion, and develop novel future research directions. The symposium will assess the current and future state of the field and explore the potential for evolutionary pressures to influence how animals communicate with each other in different behavioral contexts. Outcomes of these conference presentations will be disseminated broadly via publications, social media, and will represent seminal educational resources for students. The award will broaden participation by supporting and providing opportunities for underrepresented minorities and early career researchers to present their science and help direct the future of the research field. The collective outcomes also bear broad societal implications relevant to biodiversity and species? responses to global climate change, as well as professional development opportunities for the next generation of scientists.
This conference symposium will explore how sending and receiving sensory information in social contexts can be profoundly influenced by an individual?s reproductive and hormonal state. While this is particularly relevant in species that cycle in and out of breeding condition, many studies on animal communication at different biological levels do not consider potential modulatory influences on behaviors. This conference symposium will address this major knowledge gap through the integration of approaches from neuroscience, endocrinology, animal behavior, biomechanics, sensory ecology, and evolution. Such integration is not only critical to making substantive advances in this area, it is also timely. By making researchers in diverse fields aware of this modulatory influence on communication across different animal taxa, various sensory channels, and distinct social contexts, it will inspire new research directions and formulation of novel scientific questions and approaches to advance the field. Considering modulation in communication is critical to accurate interpretations of study conclusions, making this topic crucial for advancement of knowledge and development of future hypothesis testing. Insights gained from these presentations and discussions on sensory plasticity have the potential to fundamentally change current thinking about sensory function and animal communication and will allow researchers to address more focused comparative and evolutionary questions related to sexual selection, speciation, signaling systems, co-evolution, and physiological mechanisms in the future.
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.
