New preprint: complex systems and animal sociality

My new paper “What are we missing about animal social complexity?” was just released as a preprint on arXiv. It’s also in review at Animal Behaviour as part of a special issue organized by Rafa Rodriguez (U. Wisconsin-Milwaukee) that came out of a symposium he organized called “What Are We Not Asking About The Evolution of Behavior That We Should Be Asking” at this summer’s Animal Behavior Conference.… [Read full details]

Social tipping points – new paper

Our new paper, “Social tipping points in animal societies” was published! This was a fun effort with a great group of people, and is my first paper as “anchor author”.

Paper (open access) available from Proceedings B

Abstract

Animal social groups are complex systems that are likely to exhibit tipping points—which are defined as drastic shifts in the dynamics of systems that arise from small changes in environmental conditions—yet this concept has not been carefully applied to these systems.… [Read full details]

Cumulative culture working group

I participated in a working group at SFI on cumulative culture. I also gave a talk where I discussed the potential for the seeds of cumulative culture to emerge from animal and human interaction rules.

Overview of the working group (from SFI’s coverage here):


Throughout human evolutionary history, individuals have developed new ideas, materials, and technologies, then passed them on to other individuals and groups.

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