MCA: Using multilayer-network analysis to link the social and physical processes that underlie natal dispersal

How do the physical environment, interactions with others, and an animal’s own characteristics act together to influence that animal’s movements through a landscape? This project will answer this question by bringing together several of the most influential themes in recent animal behavior and ecology research: movement ecology, individual behavioral differences, and social network approaches.

Specifically, this project will employ new multilayer interaction network approaches to understand how interactions with other animals and the environment influence movement behavior in wild mice. This project will use animal location data obtained used automated tracking, hormonal and behavioral profiles of individual brush mice (Peromyscus boylii), and information about the physical environment through which mice move.

Broader impacts of this project include teaching and mentoring of students, development of educational materials for K-12 students, and the development of animal tracking infrastructure available for use by the wider scientific community.

Despite the clear importance of animal dispersal as a central link between individual behavior and larger-scale ecological and evolutionary processes, the causes, consequences, and process of natal dispersal, movement between the birthplace and site of first reproduction, remain relatively enigmatic. The primary focus of this project will be the integration of established and influential paradigms for the study of the movement ecology and individual variation in dispersal behavior with rapidly-advancing multilayer network approaches connecting physical and social processes to develop a truly integrative understanding of individual variation in dispersal through a socially- and physically-heterogeneous landscape.

This project will integrate multilayer interaction networks constructed using data obtained from automated tracking of Peromyscus mice with genetic, endocrine, behavioral, and environmental data to develop an integrative understanding of animal dispersal through landscapes that vary in social and ecological conditions through space and time. An additional objective is the development of research infrastructure through the reestablishment of animal tracking capabilities after previous tracking technology was destroyed by wildfire.

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.