News

Our paper on reference models for social network analysis was just published! This paper was the result of a great workshop at NIMBioS and involved a lot of consensus-building and critical thinking about how we infer patterns from social network data. The entire team was absolutely lovely to work with: ...
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I participated in writing a paper, led by David Fisher, Julia Kilgour, and Erin Siracusa, where we summarize the existing evidence on how changes in abiotic environmental conditions may impact intraspecific social interactions. The paper is available (open access) here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12772 Abstract Social interactions are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom ...
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Hobson Lab undergraduate researcher Austin Simon worked with us this year on data from the Cincinnati Zoo's Little Blue Penguin population. We collaborate with Dr. Katie Kalafut, who founded the use of automated RFID data collection on the penguins at the zoo. Austin's project focused on leadership in the penguins, ...
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SFI's communication team put together a nice summary of the recent commentary that Simon and I wrote about the PNAS paper " “Emergence of hierarchy in networked endorsement dynamics”, written by Mari Kawakatsu,  Phil Chodrow,  Nicole Eikmeier, and  Dan Larremore.  The commentary is available via PNAS here (or here). The summary from ...
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Simon and I wrote an invited commentary for PNAS that was just published. In it, we talk about the broader context around a new PNAS paper on rank and hierarchies called "Emergence of hierarchy in networked endorsement dynamics", written by Mari Kawakatsu,  Phil Chodrow,  Nicole Eikmeier, and  Dan Larremore.  PNAS did ...
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I helped out with a new paper that was just published "Satellite telemetry reveals complex migratory movement patterns of two large macaw species in the western Amazon basin" (led by Don Brightsmith, with Janice Boyd and C J. Randel).  Full text available here. Abstract Understanding avian movement patterns is important ...
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We have a new preprint out, this time about networks + ants!  Our paper uses an existing dataset on ant social interactions to ask a new question: are the history of interactions and information flow within colonies important predictors of task switching? This project started when Anshuman, Sara, Lou, and ...
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Stacy Kish wrote a really nice press release of my recent paper with Simon DeDeo and Dan Mønster.   You can read the press release here and the full text of the paper here. Thanks Stacy!     March 22, 2021 R-E-S-P-E-C-T in the Animal Kingdom The animal kingdom, from ...
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Our lab has a new preprint out! Led by Hobson Lab Postdoc Annemarie van der Marel, we weighed the pros and cons of six behavioral observation apps. We've had the idea for this paper in mind ever since Annemarie went through the app selection process in Feb 2020 to figure ...
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I had my first appearance as a podcast guest! I was interviewed by Nick Jikomes for his podcast "Good Chemistry". We talked about some of my work with animal dominance hierarchies and recent work with both parakeets and many different species. Nick posted the recording both as an audio-only podcast ...
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My collaborators and I recently posted an update to our preprint "A guide to choosing and implementing reference models for social network analysis". The paper is a result of a working group meeting at NIMBioS in fall 2019 called “Null models for social behavior“. This was a great working group, ...
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The Santa Fe Institute's press team put together a nice press release of my recent paper about animal dominance hierarchies, written in collaboration with Dan Mønster (Interacting Minds Center & Cognition and Behavior Lab, Aarhus University) and  Simon DeDeo (Laboratory for Social Minds, Carnegie Mellon). Links: press release, summary of the paper; ...
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My new paper was published! This project was the result of my long-term collaboration with Simon DeDeo (Laboratory for Social Minds, Carnegie Mellon) and Dan Mønster (Interacting Minds Center & Cognition and Behavior Lab, Aarhus University). The full text of the paper is available here. I also gave a talk ...
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My friend Ari Strandburg-Peshkin invited me to give a virtual seminar talk for the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (a collaboration between the University of Konstanz and the co-located Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior). It was a pleasure to virtually "visit" and I look forward to ...
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Hobson Lab postdoc Annemarie van der Marel presented some of our recently-published work this week. The Animal Behavior Society (ABS) and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) teamed up to host the first Global Animal Behaviour Twitter Conference (#AnimBehav2021). Presenters had up to 6 tweets of space ...
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Mike Miller put together a nice write up of the lab's recently-published paper for UC News. You can read the article here (Thanks Mike!!) The paper was published in Current Zoology and is available (open access) here. When push comes to shove, what is a fight? UC creates effective way ...
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Our lab has a new paper out in Current Zoology! The paper was led by Hobson Lab postdoctoral researcher Annemarie van der Marel and co-authored by Hobson Lab PhD students Sanjay Prasher, Chelsea Carminito, Claire O'Connell, Hobson Lab field assistant (Spring 2020) Alexa Phillips, and collaborator Bryan Kluever. Great job ...
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Chelsea is a new PhD student in the Hobson Lab who started in January 2021. She earned her undergraduate degree at Mills College in Oakland, CA, where she studied behavioral ecology of California ground squirrels in Dr. Jenn Smith's lab. Chelsea studied for a M.Sc. In Applied Animal Behaviour and ...
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Congratulations to Hobson Lab PhD student Sanjay Prasher, whose grant proposal "Effects of foraging success on social network centrality in bobwhite quail" just got funded by the Sigma Xi Grants in Aid of Research program!! This is Sanjay's first research grant, and will kick start some of our new work ...
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Congratulations to Hobson Lab undergraduate student Shruti Parashar! Shruti did a great job summarizing several analyses of Little Blue Penguin social behavior during her very first scientific presentation, called "Analyzing social relationships of Little Blue Penguins". Shruti has been a member of the Hobson Lab Penguin Data Club since Fall ...
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This paper came out of a working group meeting at NIMBioS in fall 2019 called "Null models for social behavior". This was a great working group, a really fantastic team, and a fun writing experience. The preprint is available on arXiv. The draft is currently in revision for Biological Reviews ...
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I posted an update to my paper on aggression heuristics, written with Dan Mønster and Simon DeDeo. The preprint is available on arXiv here.  Aggression heuristics underlie animal dominance hierarchies and provide evidence of group-level social information Elizabeth A. Hobson, Dan Mønster, Simon DeDeo Members of a social species need to make ...
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Hobson Lab Postdoc Annemarie posted an updated version of our paper on deciding whether to pool behaviors prior to network analyses. The preprint is available on arXiv here.  A framework to evaluate whether to pool or separate behaviors in a multilayer network Annemarie van der Marel (1), Sanjay Prasher (1), Chelsea Carminito (1), Claire O'Connell (1), Alexa Phillips (1), Bryan ...
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Current Hobson Lab postdoc Dr. Annemarie van der Marel and soon-to-be Hobson Lab postdoc Grace Smith Vidaurre will both be giving seminar talks next week as part of UC Biology's seminar series. Annemarie will be giving her talk "Socioecological environment of group-living environments". Annemarie joined the Hobson Lab in February ...
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I recently reviewed the book Thinking like a Parrot: Perspectives from the Wild by Alan Bond & Judy Diamond. My review was published in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. The full text is available here: [link to full text] ...
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