Stable isotope analyses are powerful tools for reconstructing ancient ecologies and ecosystems, as they provide direct insights into dietary ecology independent of morphology. The application of stable isotope analyses, however, is not without limitations, as determination of food web dynamics using these methods often relies on poorly tested assumptions. In this presentation, I will address challenges in paleoecological reconstructions of South American tropical ecosystems.

Most incredible animal adaptations, such as flight or filter-feeding, have been shaped by natural selection in which the fluid environment has played a fundamental role. Similarly, at submillimeter scales, some tiny organisms use other phenomena, such as electrostatics, to their biological advantage. In this seminar, I am going to focus on four stories of my recent research that show how fluids, as well as electrostatic forces outline the animal world.

We are working to accomplish for cells something like what a shepherd and sheepdogs bring to flocks of sheep: control over large-scale collective cellular motion. As coordinated cellular motion is foundational to many forms of multicellular life, being able to ‘herd’ or program large-scale cell migration raises exciting possibilities for accelerated healing, tissue engineering, and novel biomaterials.

Success in life, for humans and all animals, requires multitasking. Multitasking — the simultaneous execution of two or more behaviors by a single agent — may at times seem effortless and safe, such as walking and talking, or challenging and potentially fatal, such as driving and texting. Performance differences between different multitasking contexts are likely reflected in the cognitive demands of the constituent behaviors, yet the neural substrates that facilitate or constrain multitasking remain unknown.

Animal behavior is a key determinant of individual fitness, but also drives patterns and processes at broader ecological scales. By studying the drivers and diversity of individual behavioral strategies, we can develop a mechanistic understanding of emergent collective behavior, population dynamics, community structure, and landscape-level ecological processes. In my work, I use the antipredator behavior of African ungulates as a lens to explore the cross-scale ecological impacts of behavior.

One of the most intriguing benefits of group living is that animals may collectively tap into emergent properties to improve their decision-making abilities. This benefit likely underlies all biological collective systems, from single-celled organisms with arrays of sensors, to mixed-species flocks of migrating birds.

My research explores the dynamic and multiscale nature of animal behavior, integrating insights across scales of biological organization. In today’s seminar, I will discuss two key directions of my work.

Navigation in the open ocean has challenged humans for millennia. Nevertheless, animals around the world regularly accomplish astonishing feats of navigation. My research utilizes quantitative methods to better understand the biological mechanisms that enable such remarkable navigational feats. First, using computational modeling, I explore whether large marine animals, such as the gray whale, use the earth’s magnetic field to migrate, and describe natural sources of electromagnetic noise that can disrupt this sensory modality.