Project description
Studying the paradox of social interaction in animals
Social interaction plays a significant role in most evolutionary and ecological changes and actions, including but not restricted to foraging. Social interactions cause the development of thorough individuality in animals, especially concerning their diet and location selection, due to sharing of social information. This factor contradicts the prevalent belief that sociality endorses a lack of individuality in animals, providing us with a paradox. The EU-funded IFSSOC project aims to study this paradox, deducing the effects of sociality and social interaction on animals’ individuality. To achieve this, the project’s research will focus on birds of the Sulidae family which exhibit mostly similar morphologies with geographic diversity.
Objective
Social interactions are fundamental for many ecological and evolutionary processes, including foraging. However, in many animals that use social information, a high degree of individuality in traits such as site and diet selection also exists. This represents an apparent paradox when sociality could potentially reduce individuality. Thus, it is unknown how these two processes interact to shape current and future foraging behaviour. For instance, can some animals become specialised in terms of social information use, or does group foraging erode individuality? This project will determine the interplay between the social and learned components of foraging, and levels of specialisation in habitat use and diet, across of range of seabirds in the Sulidae family (a morphologically constrained but geographically diverse group). State-of-the-art biologgers will be used to collect coupled video and GPS data to quantify the prevalence of group, solitary and commensal foraging in focal taxa representative of tropical and temperate environments, and link strategy to foraging success. State-space models, trained on coupled datasets, will be applied to long-term tracking data from nine Sulid species, to allow a family-scale comparison of specialisation. Through these focused analyses of individual foraging, this research action will enable predictions about the adaptive capabilities of populations to climate change, thus aligning with EU environmental priorities. The current skill set of the experienced researcher, together with a suite of newly acquired skills gained under tutelage of the strong supervisory partnership at host organisations, will make this timely research possible. This global, interdisciplinary project will result in high levels of knowledge exchange, foster international collaboration, and maximise the experienced researcher’s professional development, mobility and career potential, while addressing a fundamental question by combining two fields in bioscience.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology ornithology
- natural sciences biological sciences evolutionary biology
- medical and health sciences health sciences nutrition
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2018
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
EH14 4AS Edinburgh
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.