CRC TRR 212 A02 - Optimistic and pessimistic decision making under ambiguity: causes and consequences for niche choice and niche conformance

Basic data for this project

Description

This project will transfer the study of decision-making under ambiguity from human psychology and animal welfare science to behavioural ecology. Using laboratory mice as model organism, the project will be designed as a proof-of-principle study. Mice of different strains will be allocated to either benign or harsh environments before they will be tested in a novel touchscreen-based judgement bias paradigm to detect optimists and pessimists. In a second step, these individuals will be subjected to either a niche choice or a niche conformance experiment. By means of behavioural and endocrinological measures as well as epigenetic modifications of candidate genes, differences between optimists and pessimists will be studied.