Research focus:
Tinbergen famously highlighted the need to understand behaviors at both the evolutionary and individual levels. I apply this framework to the behaviors of, colloquially, trust and wariness.
Why do animals choose to associate with particular partners? How do they signal the status of these relationships, and to whom? How do cooperation and avoidance, care and spite, evolve and develop, for the species and for the individual?
All animals must engage in some form of social interaction during their lives. My work concentrates on highly social species in diverse taxonomic groups, with correspondingly diverse socio-reproductive systems, from cichlids to macaques to passerines.
Why do animals choose to associate with particular partners? How do they signal the status of these relationships, and to whom? How do cooperation and avoidance, care and spite, evolve and develop, for the species and for the individual?
All animals must engage in some form of social interaction during their lives. My work concentrates on highly social species in diverse taxonomic groups, with correspondingly diverse socio-reproductive systems, from cichlids to macaques to passerines.