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Jennifer Elaine Smith
Jennifer Elaine Smith (Jenn Smith) is a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist. She is an assistant professor of biology at University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Previously, she was an associate professor and chair of biology at Mills College, in Oakland, California, prior to its merger with Northeastern University. Her research focuses primarily on the social lives of mammals based on insights gained from long-term studies on marked individuals and comparative approaches. Early life and education Smith was born in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. She holds a B.A. in biology with a concentration in environmental science from Colby College and an M.S. in integrative biology from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She went on to complete dual PhDs in zoology and ecology, evolutionary biology and behavior at Michigan State University. Her dissertation research with Kay E. Holekamp involved extensive fieldwork in Kenya and focused on the evolutionary and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jennifer Elaine Smith
Jennifer Elaine Smith (Jenn Smith) is a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist. She is an assistant professor of biology at University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Previously, she was an associate professor and chair of biology at Mills College, in Oakland, California, prior to its merger with Northeastern University. Her research focuses primarily on the social lives of mammals based on insights gained from long-term studies on marked individuals and comparative approaches. Early life and education Smith was born in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. She holds a B.A. in biology with a concentration in environmental science from Colby College and an M.S. in integrative biology from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She went on to complete dual PhDs in zoology and ecology, evolutionary biology and behavior at Michigan State University. Her dissertation research with Kay E. Holekamp involved extensive fieldwork in Kenya and focused on the evolutionary and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociality
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies. Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wasp stays near her larvae in the nest, parasites are less likely to eat the larvae. Biologists suspect that pressures from parasites and other predators Natural selection, selected this behavior in wasps of the Family (biology), family Vespidae. This wasp behaviour evidences the most fundamental characteristic of animal sociality: parental investment. Parental investment is any expenditure of resources (time, energy, social capital) to benefit one's offspring. Parental investment detracts from a parent's capacity to invest in future reproduction and aid to Family, kin (including other offspring). An animal that cares for its young but shows no other sociality traits is said to be ''subsocial''. An animal that exhibits a high degree of social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Biologists
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolution, evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the Biodiversity, diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth. Evolution is based on the theory that all species are related and they gradually change over time. In a population, the genetic variations affect the physical characteristics i.e. phenotypes of an organism. These changes in the phenotypes will be an advantage to some organisms, which will then be passed onto their offspring. Some examples of evolution in species over many generations are the Peppered moth, Peppered Moth and Flightless birds. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Briones Regional Park
Briones Regional Park is a regional park in the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) system, located in the Briones Hills of central Contra Costa County of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Geography The park is located in rolling hills of the East Bay region, near Martinez, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, and Pleasant Hill. The western end of Briones Regional Park is adjacent to the Briones Reservoir, operated by EBMUD across Bear Creek Road. Briones Peak is the highest point in the park with an elevation of 1483 ft (452 m), and offers panoramic views of Mount Diablo and the Diablo Valley to the east, the Sacramento River to the north, and the Berkeley Hills and Mount Tamalpais to the west. The park is also home to many animals and birds, such as turkey vultures, black-tailed deer, cougars, coyotes, squirrels, and redtailed hawks. Cattle, sheep, and goat ranchers still use portions of the park for grazing purposes and hold a one hundred-year lease that is effectiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Ground Squirrel
The California ground squirrel (''Otospermophilus beecheyi''), also known as the Beechey ground squirrel, is a common and easily observed ground squirrel of the western United States and the Baja California Peninsula; it is common in Oregon and California and its range has relatively recently extended into Washington and northwestern Nevada. Formerly placed in ''Spermophilus'', as ''Spermophilus beecheyi'', it was reclassified in ''Otospermophilus'' in 2009, as it became clear that ''Spermophilus'' as previously defined was not a natural (monophyletic) group. A full species account was published for this species in 2016. Etymology John Richardson, who originally described the species as ''Arctomys (Spermophilus) beecheyi'', or "Beechey's marmot", named it after Frederick William Beechey, an early 19th-century British explorer and naval officer. Description The squirrel's upper parts are mottled, with the fur containing a mixture of gray, light brown and dusky hairs. The shoul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behavioral Ecology
Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioural ecology, is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when studying animal behaviors: What are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of a behavior? If an organism has a trait that provides a selective advantage (i.e., has adaptive significance) in its environment, then natural selection favors it. Adaptive significance refers to the expression of a trait that affects fitness, measured by an individual's reproductive success. Adaptive traits are those that produce more copies of the individual's genes in future generations. Maladaptive traits are those that leave fewer. For example, if a bird that can call more loudly attracts more mates, then a loud call is an adaptive trait for that species because a louder bird mates more frequently than less loud birds—thus sending mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coalition
A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Guide for Political Parties'' published by National Democratic Institute and The Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, there are five steps of coalition-building: # Developing a party strategy: The first step in coalition-building involves developing a party strategy that will prepare for successful negotiation. The more effort parties place on this step, the more likely they are to identify strategic partners, negotiate a good deal and avoid some of the common mistakes associated with coalition-building. # Negotiating a coalition: Based on the strategy that each party has prepared, in step 2 the parties come together to negotiate and hopefully reach agreement on the terms for the coalition. Depending on the context and objectives of the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collective Animal Behavior
Collective animal behaviour is a form of social behavior involving the coordinated behavior of large groups of similar animals as well as emergent properties of these groups. This can include the costs and benefits of group membership, the transfer of information, decision-making process, locomotion and synchronization of the group. Studying the principles of collective animal behavior has relevance to human engineering problems through the philosophy of biomimetics. For instance, determining the rules by which an individual animal navigates relative to its neighbors in a group can lead to advances in the deployment and control of groups of swimming or flying micro-robots such as UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). Examples Examples of collective animal behavior include: * Flocking birds * Herding ungulates * Shoaling and schooling fish * Schooling Antarctic krill * Pods of dolphins * Marching locusts * Nest building ants * Swarming * Stampede History The basis of collect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leadership
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets viewed as a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the concept, sometimes contrasting Eastern and Western approaches to leadership, and also (within the West) North American versus European approaches. U.S. academic environments define leadership as "a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common and ethical task". Basically, leadership can be defined as an influential power-relationship in which the power of one party (the "leader") promotes movement/change in others (the "followers"). Some have challenged the more traditional managerial views of leadership (which portray leadership as something possessed or owned by one individual due ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spotted Hyenas
The spotted hyena (''Crocuta crocuta''), also known as the laughing hyena, is a hyena species, currently classed as the sole extant member of the genus ''Crocuta'', native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as being of least concern by the IUCN on account of its widespread range and large numbers estimated between 27,000 and 47,000 individuals. The species is, however, experiencing declines outside of protected areas due to habitat loss and poaching. The species may have originated in Asia, and once ranged throughout Europe for at least one million years until the end of the Late Pleistocene. The spotted hyena is the largest known member of the Hyaenidae, and is further physically distinguished from other species by its vaguely bear-like build, its rounded ears, its less prominent mane, its spotted pelt, its more dual-purposed dentition, its fewer nipples and the presence of a pseudo-penis in the female. It is the only placental mammalian species where females lack an external v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coalition Formation
In game theory, a cooperative game (or coalitional game) is a game with competition between groups of players ("coalitions") due to the possibility of external enforcement of cooperative behavior (e.g. through contract law). Those are opposed to non-cooperative games in which there is either no possibility to forge alliances or all agreements need to be self-enforcing (e.g. through credible threats). Cooperative games are often analysed through the framework of cooperative game theory, which focuses on predicting which coalitions will form, the joint actions that groups take and the resulting collective payoffs. It is opposed to the traditional non-cooperative game theory which focuses on predicting individual players' actions and payoffs and analyzing Nash equilibria. Cooperative game theory provides a high-level approach as it only describes the structure, strategies and payoffs of coalitions, whereas non-cooperative game theory also looks at how bargaining procedures will a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
