Sociality - the suite of socially learned behaviors specific to a group of animals – is increasingly recognized as an integral strategy to the evolutionary ecology of many non-human animals. This is especially true in marine environments, where there are few barriers to dispersal, and top predators must find other ways to segregate and identify their niche space. In this hour I will share four examples of recent and ongoing research projects that incorporate the lens of sociality into our understanding of the evolutionary ecology of cetaceans.

Join us for our final seminar in the Spring 2023 Bio Grad Seminar Series! This June, Vaibhav Chhaya (Santana Lab) will be presenting his research report. Hosted by Andy Hempton.

Join us for our Spring 2023 Bio Grad Seminar Series! This May, Kaysee Arrowsmith (Brosi Lab), David Cuban (Rico-Guevara Lab), and Hayden Davis (Leache Lab) will be presenting their research reports. Hosted by Edú Guerra.

Therese Lamperty, PhD
"Investigating the effects of hunting-induced animal declines in the Amazon on plant population genetics: are the small-seeded plants affected too?"

Federico Marcello Tenedini, PhD
"Length dependent neurodegeneration is mediated by inflammatory cytokines"

Mugdha Sathe, PhD
"How do immune cells detect and respond to electric fields at the wound?"

Join us for our Spring 2023 Bio Grad Seminar Series! This April, Benjamin Sheppard (Steinbrenner Lab), Nathan Grassi (Kerr Lab), and Edú Guerra (Santana Lab) will be presenting their research reports. Hosted by Sophia Jannetty.

Individuality is a fundamental feature of animal behavior and represents a potent substrate that evolutionary pressures can act upon. Such idiosyncrasy in behavior exists across scales: within a single animal from moment-to-moment, across animals responding to an identical stimulus, or in response to complex and changing environments. Individuality within insect behavior is also important to understand within the context of global health.

Animals are constantly faced with decisions about what to eat, where to live, and whom to mate with. While most models of decision making assume that individuals assign absolute values to options encountered, animals often assess value relative to other options available or to options recently encountered. Such decisions can be complex, often requiring individuals to compare multiple features associated with each option and their reward payoffs. Such decisions can also produce different outcomes depending on the context of the choice.