Barney Schlinger: UCLAManakins are a clade of extraordinary neotropical birds. In many species, the brightly–colored males are polygynous, performing no parental care duties, but they gather into leks for courtship. Over the past 20 years, my lab has performed detailed behavioral studies of golden-collared manakins (Manacus vitellinus) of Panamanian rainforests. These males clear display courts […]
Dan Conroy-Beam: UC Santa BarbaraHuman mating research is largely motivated by an assumption that mate choice is guided by mate preferences. But the field knows little about the psychology responsible for translating preferences into downstream outcomes. Stated differently, what do mate preferences do and how do they do it? I present data from a series […]
Ian C. Gilby: Arizona State UniversityIn order to understand the causes and consequences of the significant increase in meat consumption in hominins, we must first make inferences about the behavior of the last common ancestor (LCA) of apes and humans. Chimpanzees, which regularly hunt vertebrates, are a valuable point of reference for understanding the possible […]
Noa Pinter-Wollman: UCLAMany biological systems are aggregates of individuals working synergistically to achieve collective goals. In social insects, evolution acts on variation in the emergent collective behaviors of the colony. Variation among colonies in collective behavior can result from differences in their composition and/or from differences in the environments in which they reside. To understand […]
Catherine Salmon: University of RedlandsA compelling puzzle of our modern world is the disturbing obsession of some women with body image and dieting. Why do so many women in North America place such an emphasis on being thin? Why do these desires lead to eating disorders in only some women? It is commonly assumed that […]
Eric Schniter: UC Santa BarbaraCollaborative research from the Tsimane Health and Life History Project has investigated whether age profiles of Tsimane skill development are consistent with life history theory predictions about the timing of productivity and reproduction. Life history models suggest that the especially long human lifespan co-evolved with large brains in a foraging niche […]
Doug Jones: University of Utah
Kim Hill: Arizona State University
Adam Sparks: UCLAWho takes risks, and why? Does risk-taking in one context predict risk-taking in other contexts? Attempting to answer these questions, I present a general conceptual model of decision-making under risk that integrates two inter-related pathways to risk-taking. The need-based pathway describes strategic response to competitive disadvantages; the ability-based pathway exploits competitive advantages. This […]
