Fall 2023

Talks are Tuesdays at: 08:00 (PDT), 11:00 (EDT), 17:00 (CEST), 20:30 (IST), 01:00 (Wednesday, AEST)

Vanessa Ezenwa

Title: In sickness and in health: complex effects of social behavior on infectious disease. Recorded Talk.

Date: 05 September 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Group living and pathogen infection revisited.

2. Social living simultaneously increases infection risk and decreases the cost of infection.

3. Parasitism and host social behavior: a meta-analysis of insights derived from social network analysis.

Mark Harrison

Title: Molecular signatures of longevity in eusocial animals. Recorded Talk.

Date: 12 September 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Gene Coexpression Network Reveals Highly Conserved, Well-Regulated Anti-Ageing Mechanisms in Old Ant Queens.

2. Complex regulatory role of DNA methylation in caste- and age-specific expression of a termite.

3. More effective transposon regulation in fertile, long-lived termite queens than in sterile workers.

Peter M. Buston

Title: Social Evolution in Anemonefishes: Formation, Maintenance, and Transformation of Social Groups. Recorded Talk.

Date: 19 September 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Social evolution in anemonefishes: formation, maintenance, and transformation of social groups. In: Evolution, Development, and Ecology of Anemonefishes: Model Organisms for Marine Science.

2. Ecological and social constraints combine to promote the evolution of non-breeding strategies in clownfish.

3. Reproductive control via the threat of eviction in the clown anemonefish.

4. Strategic growth in social vertebrates.

Josh Firth

Title: The Behavioural Ecology of Contagions: Pandemics, Passerines, and Permuted Populations. Recorded Talk.

Date: 26 September 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Considering Complexity: Animal Social Networks and Behavioural Contagions.

2. Using a real-world network to model localized COVID-19 control strategies.

3. Social learning mechanisms shape transmission pathways through replicate local social networks of wild birds.

David Queller

Title: Cheating in a social microbe. Recorded Talk.

Date: 03 October 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. High relatedness maintains multicellular cooperation in a social amoeba by controlling cheater mutants.

2. High relatedness is necessary and sufficient to maintain multicellularity in Dictyostelium.

3. Cooperation and conflict in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.

Aubrey Kelly

Title: Neural mechanisms underlying grouping behavior in spiny mice (Acomys cahirinus). Recorded Talk.

Date: 10 October 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Characterization of social behavior in the spiny mouse, Acomys cahirinus.

2. Species-typical group size differentially influences social reward neural circuitry during nonreproductive social interactions.

Ben Finkel

Title: The challenges of senescence for wild male chimpanzees. Recorded Talk.

Date: 17 October 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Evaluating the impact of physical frailty during ageing in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii).

2. Favorable ecological circumstances promote life expectancy in chimpanzees similar to that of human hunter-gatherers.

3. Patterns of aging in the long-lived wandering albatross.

Animal Behavior and Conservation Panel: Oded Berger-Tal

Date: 24 October 2023

Recorded Talk

Suggested Readings:

1. Integrating animal behavior and conservation biology: A conceptual Framework.

2. Research priorities from animal behaviour for maximizing conservation progress.

3. The rules of attraction: the necessary role of animal cognition in explaining conservation failures and successes.

Animal Behavior and Conservation Panel: Daniel Blumstein

Date: 24 October 2023

Recorded Talk

Suggested Readings:

1. Integrating animal behavior and conservation biology: A conceptual Framework.

2. Research priorities from animal behaviour for maximizing conservation progress.

3. The rules of attraction: the necessary role of animal cognition in explaining conservation failures and successes.

Animal Behavior and Conservation Panel: Alison Greggor

Date: 24 October 2023

Recorded Talk

Suggested Readings:

1. Integrating animal behavior and conservation biology: A conceptual Framework.

2. Research priorities from animal behaviour for maximizing conservation progress.

3. The rules of attraction: the necessary role of animal cognition in explaining conservation failures and successes.

Animal Behavior and Conservation Panel: John Swaddle

Date: 24 October 2023

Recorded Talk

Suggested Readings:

1. Integrating animal behavior and conservation biology: A conceptual Framework.

2. Research priorities from animal behaviour for maximizing conservation progress.

3. The rules of attraction: the necessary role of animal cognition in explaining conservation failures and successes.

Damien Farine

Title: Uncovering the hidden social lives of birds. Recorded Talk.

Date: 31 October 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. The multilevel society of a small-brained bird.

2. Multilevel social structure predicts individual helping responses in a songbird.

Liz Lange

Title: Setting the foundations for life: long-term effects of early life environments. Recorded Talk.

Date: 07 November 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Early life adversity and adult social relationships have independent effects on survival in a wild primate.

2. Social and early life determinants of survival from cradle to grave: a case study in wild baboons.

Janet Mann

Title: Social bonds, reproduction and survival in wild bottlenose dolphins. Recorded Talk.

Date: 14 November 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Reproductive timing as an explanation for skewed parentage assignment ratio in a bisexually philopatric population.

2. Sex bias in mortality risk changes over the lifespan of bottlenose dolphins.

3. Lifetime stability of social traits in bottlenose dolphins.

4. Senescence impacts reproduction and maternal investment in bottlenose dolphins.

Thanksgiving Break

Date: 21 November 2023

Simone Pika

Title: Animal cognition: from corvids and chimpanzees. Talk Canceled.

Date: 28 November 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Ravens parallel great apes in physical and social cognitive skills.

2. Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) exploit tortoises (Kinixys erosa) via percussive technology.

3. Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild.

Annemarie van der Marel

Title: Socioecological environment of group-living species. Recorded Talk.

Date: 05 December 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Perturbations highlight importance of social history in parakeet rank dynamics.

2. Barbary ground squirrels do not have a sentinel system but instead synchronise vigilance.

3. Social organization in a North African ground squirrel.

Vincent Viblanc

Title: Social stress and its adaptive value in colonial mammals and birds. Recorded Talk.

Date: 12 December 2023

Suggested Readings:

1. Social stress in female Columbian ground squirrels: density-independent effects of kin contribute to variation in fecal glucocorticoid metabolites.

2. Territorial scent-marking effects on vigilance behavior, space use, and stress in female Columbian ground squirrels.

3. Energetic adjustments in freely breeding-fasting king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus): does colony density matter?