Symposia
Symposia
Susan Riechert Festschrift Symposium
Organizers: Elizabeth Derryberry, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee Knoxville and Todd Freeberg, Department of Psychology & Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Over the course of her productive career, Susan Riechert has advanced how we think about game theory and animal contests, and encouraged multiple generations of scientists to make their mark in the fields of animal behavior and evolution. An early feminist and strong supporter of diversity in all forms, Riechert has also led the way towards a more inclusive discipline. On the eve of her retirement, we celebrate her career and contributions to our field by inviting both senior and early career scientists influenced by her research to speak about their own work on game theory, behavioral syndromes, territorial behavior, invasion biology, and, of course, spiders..
Speakers: George Uetz, Rosemary Gillespie, Lisa Taylor, Andy Sih, Linda Rayor, and Susan Riechert
Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior: Technological Advances to Reveal the Secret Lives of Animals
Organizer: Jennifer E. Smith, Department of Biology, Mills College
In the 4.5 decades since Altmann (1974) published her seminal paper on the methods for the observational study of behavior, technological innovations for automated detection and analysis of behavior have fundamentally transformed our field. Among others, advances in the use of automated sensing, tracking devices, robots and machine vision are revealing new intricacies about the lives of animals at spatial and temporal resolutions that have been hidden from humans, making the unwatchable seeable.
This symposium will highlight a diverse group of early-career professionals implementing recent technological advances to address long-standing questions in animal behavior. It will also support a larger initiative to cultivate the future of animal behavior science and to provide visibility for a group of new investigators at a formative career stage. The symposium will occur on a day directly following the pre-meeting professional development workshop, Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior (WFAB) supported by the Animal Behavior Society and the National Science Foundation.
The final slot of the symposium will be devoted to discussion. This capstone session will support a collaborative dialogue among speakers and audience members to identify emerging opportunities and challenges in our field. Based on these insights, the cohort of speakers will establish a peer network among themselves with the goal of generating a synthetic review outlining: (i) what they see as the big, unanswered questions in animal behavior and (ii) how their combined toolkit may stimulate future lines of inquiry to advance our field.
Speakers: Jennifer Smith, Ari Strandburg-Peshkin, Adriana Maldonado Chaparro, Blair Costelloe, Christopher Schel, Gerald Carter, Laurel Symes, Marcelo Araya-Salas, Mikel Delgado, Roxanne Beltran, Rusty Ligon, and Taka Sasaki
Down With The Sickness: The Behavior Of Infected Animals
Organizer: Nick Keiser, University of Florida, Charissa de Bekker, University of Central Florida, Biplabendu Das, University of Central Florida,
Parasites and other agents of infectious disease represent ubiquitous environmental stressors that impart strong selective pressures on host traits. Hosts often behave in such a way to reduce exposure to parasites or to bolster one’s resistance to infection. However, we also know colloquially and from diverse research systems, that animals change their behavior after infection. Thus, parasites are an important contributor to behavioral trait diversity in natural populations. This symposium synthesizes the diverse ways in which parasite infection changes host behavior: (1) adaptive sickness behaviors that benefit the host, (2) behavioral manipulation that benefits the parasite, and (3) the mechanisms by which host and parasite interact to produce behavioral outcomes. As such, this symposium is not only uniting regular parasite-focused ABS attendees into a dedicated session but is also bringing in parasite researchers who focus on behavior but usually attend other conferences. The invited contributors to this session represent all career stages from graduate students to early career researchers, to established professors.
Speakers: Janice Moore, Amy Worthington, Leonardo Barcellos, Lauren Cator, Carolyn Elya, Samantha Strauss, Charissa de Bekker, and Jim Adelman
Resource Limitation: A Tie That Binds In The Evolution Of Eusociality Or Reproductive Skew?
Organizer: Amy Toth, Iowa State University
Speakers: Leticia Avilés (University of British Columbia, Canada), Sandra Rehan (York University, Canada), Alexander Walton (Iowa State University, USA), Chris Faulkes (Queen Mary University, London UK), Erik Ringen (Emory University, USA), Carlos Botero (Washington University, USA,) Judith Korb (University of Freiburg, Germany)
Null Models In Social Behavior
Organizers: Noa Pinter-Wollman, University of California, Los Angeles
Social behavior emerges from interactions among individuals. Questions about social processes and the formation of social structures are answered by comparing observed behaviors to null models. These null models are often produced by randomizing observed patterns, leaving researchers much freedom to interpret and design the randomization. However, this freedom can lead to ‘straw-man’ nulls or to misinterpreting results that reject the null. Most frequently, in studies of animal social networks, observed interaction patterns are compared with null models in which biological constraints are overlooked, including environmental, demographic, and physiological constraints. Designing appropriate models requires both deep intuition of the study system and strong quantitative skills. Still, even with these skills, it can be challenging to determine the most appropriate null model that will allow one to answer the focal biological question in an appropriately controlled and careful way. In this symposium, we will explore approaches to constructing null models in the study of animal social behavior. The speakers are from Animal Behavior and Math..
Speakers: Nina Fefferman, Noa Pinter-Wollman, Puck Rombach, Sarai Shai, Matt Silk, Elizabeth Hobson, Dai Shizuka, Eli Strauss, Dan Franks and Orr Speigel
Animal Personality Symposia
Organizer: Elizabeth Tibbetts, ABS Program Officer
Presidential Symposia: Using Animal Behavior To Solve Global Grand Challenge
Organizer: John Swaddle, ABS Immediate Past-President
Insights from animal behavior have applications in a broad array of industries and professional areas, including conservation, human-wildlife conflict, bioengineering, and human and public health. Specifically, presenters in this symposium will illustrate how and why a fundamental understanding of animal behavior can improve conservation outcomes, reduce the conflict between economic development and the needs of wildlife population, inform the design of engineered products through biomimicry, inform public health strategies, and improve mental health of both people and companion animals. We hope to inspire new areas of translational and applied behavioral research, as well as increase awareness of how animal behavior has broad applications that are important to society.
Speakers: Elizabeth Peterso,n Allison Greggor, Vanessa Ezenw,a Rob Knell, Julie Savidge, John Swaddle
Allee Symposium for Best Student Paper
Organizer: Eileen Hebets, ABS Second President-Elect
This symposium features outstanding graduate student research, with an award for the best paper, and is a highlight of ABS meetings. The session honors Dr. Warder Clyde Allee (1885–1955), an animal behavior researcher who was very influential in the development and direction of animal behavior research in the 20th century. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1951 and ranks among the leading twentieth century ecologists, especially for his work in behavioral and animal ecology. In the 202020 ABS Allee Session, students will present their research to ABS members and talk judges.