This award provides funds for a Research Training Group in Animal Behavior that will be initiated in conjunction with a new Center for Animal Behavior at the Davis Campus of the University of California. The faculty group consists of 15 junior and senior investigators from the Departments of Zoology and Psychology and from the Regional Primate Center in Davis. The funds awarded will provide stipends for graduate students and postdoctoral trainees, will support research during the summer by undergraduates, and will defray part of the cost of the trainees' research. In addition, funds will be used to purchase specialized research equipment to be used by trainees and to bring investigators from other research and academic institutions to the campus for seminars and, in particular, for an intensive workshop to be held at the time of spring break each year. The study of animal behavior both requires and provides new insights into the study of animals as organisms. Increasingly, multidisciplinary approaches that recognize the interaction of genetic, developmental, physiological and environmental determinants are playing an important role in the analysis of behavior. Among the research topics represented by the training group's faculty are the development and neurophysiology of animal communication, the analysis of the evolution of behavior using invertebrate models, physiological sources and consequences of social dynamics and reproduction, and proximate mechanisms in social behavior and socioecology. These varied research activities, coupled with an intensive program of seminars by resident and invited faculty will expose trainees to the newest techniques and ideas while equipping them with a solid foundation in established methodologies and concepts.
