Group Living
This area of my research emphasizes the ecological determinants of social structure of Gunnisons prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni) in northern Arizona, including: the costs and benefits of group formation; the influence of kinship on sociality; the mating success of individuals living in highly complex social groups; the underlying mechanisms, specifically the abundance and distribution of food resources, driving patterns of variation in group formation.
There are two main aspects of this research 1) experimentally testing the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis and 2)developing an Individual-based model that allows individual organisms, whose behaviors are probabilistic rather than deterministic, to make decisions based on available information rather than perfect information and interact on an actual landscape rather than a theoretical space. This work is in collaboration with
Dr. Chris Jensenat the Pratt Institute
Behavioral Syndromes
The objectives of this study are threefold: 1) To establish that limited behavioral tests performed in the field on wild animals are a good proxy of behavioral syndromes, 2) To determine if social context influences behavioral responses, 3) To explore the differences in behavioral syndromes among nocturnal, semi-solitary foragers and diurnal, gregarious, social foragers. This work combines long-term field research underway on Microcebus rufus in Madagascar by the
Jernvall Lab and experimental studies on captive lemurs at the
Duke Lemur Center in Durham, NC.
Social Networks
This long-term project will 1) explore the plasticity of behavioral syndromes in varying social contexts, 2) examine the stability of social networks with varying frequencies of behavioral types, and 3) provide the foundation for the development of an individual-based model (IBM) that will generate testable predictions aimed at advancing our understanding of behavioral syndromes, social network theory, and their interaction. In collaboration with
Dr. John Placer, this project will also test the application of fuzzy algorithms in predicting social behavior
