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 Andy Sih held a named professorship at Univ. Kentucky until he was hired to chair a department at UC Davis. He is a preeminent behavioral ecologist who takes an empirical, experimental approach to theoretical problems involving behavior, evolution, and population genetics. Andy works on the evolution of ecologically important behaviors (predator-prey, mating, and social behaviors) life history traits, and how these influence population and community ecological patterns. Most of his empirical projects examine freshwater organisms, e.g., fish, amphibian larvae, crayfish, insects and other freshwater invertebrates. Andy is also a prolific writer of thoughtful review papers.
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All Glaser Lectures are held in WC 130 from 12-1pm.
- Lecture 1: An introduction to models and experiments connecting behavior and ecology
Organisms obviously alter their behaviors in response to ecological conditions; i.e., ecology affects behavior. In turn, behavioral responses to environmental variation obviously have a major effect on individual fitness, population performance, species interactions, and thus community dynamics; i.e., behavior affects ecology. Although there is a decades-long tradition of linking behavior and ecology, many ecological models and analyses nonetheless, in effect, ignore behavior. Conversely, for some major issues in behavior (e.g., mating behavior and sexual selection), surprisingly little work has been done on how ecological variation influences behavioral patterns. In this introductory talk, I outline some major issues on the connection between behavior and ecology.
- Lecture 2: Prey naivety, antipredator behavior and the ecology of predator invasions
Invasions by novel predators can have major, negative impacts on competitors and/or prey. Key issues involve understanding invader traits and community characteristics that explain variation in invasion success and invader impacts on invaded communities. Here, I outline insights on invasions that come from understanding predator-prey behavior, in particular, variations in prey antipredator responses to novel, exotic predators. When an exotic predator invades, why do some prey ‘get it’ – i.e., respond appropriately to the novel predator – while other prey do not ‘get it’? How might variation in prey response to novel predators explain variations in invasion dynamics? This is one example of a general fascinating issue in modern ecology – variation among species or individuals in ability to respond well to rapid environmental change (in this case, the invasion of a new predator).
- : Lecture 3: Predator-prey behavioral response races
Predator-prey interactions often play a major role in determining the success of both predators and prey. Obviously, predators and prey have opposing interests. For example, with regard to space use, predators should prefer to be in areas with more prey, whereas prey prefer to be in areas with fewer predators. If predators ‘win’ this spatial conflict, predators and prey should be positively associated in space, whereas if prey ‘win’ the conflict, the two should have negative spatial associations. Field surveys show the full range of actual predator-prey spatial associations including negative, positive and apparently random associations. In this lecture, I present a conceptual framework (including mathematical models) for analyzing this issue, and describe experiments examining factors that influence the outcome of this predator-prey space race. The experimental work focuses on amphibian larvae and their predators.
- Lecture 4: Ecological implications of behavioral syndromes
A current hot area in animal behavior is the study of behavioral syndromes (aka animal personalities). The basic idea is that in many species, including ones that are not thought of as behaviorally complex or sophisticated, individuals differ in behavioral type, often across multiple contexts. For example, some individuals are more aggressive or bold while others are unaggressive and shy in feeding, mating, social and antipredator contexts. In my departmental seminar, I will describe this concept in more detail, present some examples, and discuss evolutionary issues. Here, I will explore ecological implications of behavioral syndromes – for classic issues about distribution and abundance of species, and for important contemporary issues such as ecological invasions and responses to human-induced rapid environmental change.
- Lecture 5: Putting ecology into studies of mating behavior and sexual selection
Although there is a long history of linking ecology and foraging and antipredator behavior, the link between ecology and mating behaviors and sexual selection is much less well developed. For example, while numerous studies have looked at female preferences for different male traits, relatively few have looked at how female choice changes in response to changes in key ecological factors like density, competition or predation risk. In a sense, mating behavioral ecology is not very ecological. Here, I review some notable studies on the ecology of sexual selection, and present, in detail, my own experimental work on how ecological factors influence the multiple behavioral mechanisms (male-male competition, female choice and male-female conflict) that underlie mating patterns and sexual selection in stream water striders, a model system for studies on sexual selection. back
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