Thinking inside the (nest) box: asocial and social learning in avian nest building
Title:
Thinking inside the (nest)box: asocial and social learning in avian nest building
Info:
Dr. Lauren Guillette
University of Alberta
Date:
Friday, March 25, 3 - 4 PM MSTWhere:
This will be a hybrid talk, taking place both in-person (P116, Biological Sciences Building) and online (see google calendar for the link). Choose your preferred mode of attendance.
Abstract:
Nest building is a form of animal engineering that is crucial to reproductive success. It is becoming clear that decisions made by birds when nest building are considerably more flexible and experience-dependent than was typically thought. In this talk I report on recent work from my research group that asks: (1) if birds make nest-building decisions using different types of social information, (2) what birds learn from their own nest-building experience, (3) what juveniles learn about nest material during development, and lastly, (4) how might nest-building ecology shape cognitive abilities. I will talk about results from work in the laboratory with zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) where the male is the primary nest builder.
Bio:
Dr. Lauren Guillette is the Principal Investigator of the Animal Cognition Research Group and an Assistant Professor of Comparative Cognition and Behaviour in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alberta in Canada. Members of the Animal Cognition Research Group have a broad interest in animal behaviour, with a particular focus on how learning and cognitive abilities allow animals to solve problems they face in the wild and they investigate the causes and consequences of variation in these abilities. Dr. Guillette moved to the University of Alberta in 2018 from the University of St Andrews in the UK where she was a Royal Society and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Fellow for five years. Before that Dr. Guillette obtained a PhD from the University of Alberta studying among-individual variation in cognitive abilities in wild-caught black-capped chickadees and a MA from Mount Holyoke College (USA) studying the adaptive significance of associative learning in larval antlions, which are a sit-and-wait predator.
Website:
https://sites.psych.ualberta.ca/animal-cognition-ualberta/
Twitter:
