Primate Behavior and Ecology course in Costa Rica

Educational Organization:
El Zota Biological station and Tortuguero Reserve Cano Palma

Date Posted:
2010-01-25

Program Description:
Primate Behavior and Ecology course in Costa Rica

This month-long course is designed to teach undergraduate and graduate students the basic skills necessary to study primate behavior in the wild. Throughout this course you will learn techniques in ecological and behavioral data collection and complete an independent study on one of three primate species native to the area (Ateles geoffroyi, the black handed spider monkey; Cebus capucinus, the white-faced capuchin; Alouatta palliata, the mantled howler monkey).While our course cost may be a bit higher than some similar field courses we take pride in the fact that our students have the advantage of doing work in two forests, learn Spanish, take a few fun field trips and help educate local students.

This course will take place at two field sites. The first three weeks will be held at El Zota Biological Station, an inland tropical wet forest site comprised of primary, secondary and regenerating forest. The last week will be held at Tortuguero, a fragmented coastal lowland tropical forest comprised of riverine, palm and secondary forest areas surrounded by the the canals of Rio Tortuguero and the Atlantic Ocean.

To encourage cooperation and collaboration with local Costa Rican scholars and students, a Spanish language instructor will be on hand for Spanish lessons during the course. Participation in lessons is expected from all students.

In addition, we believe the generosity of the Costa Rican people should be rewarded for allowing us to work and visit their country; therefore a portion of the course fee will cover the high school fees of local Costa Rican students. The cost for high school is $150 dollars a year for a student in Costa Rica; however, many simply cannot afford this rate. Our hope is that this connection will foster a relationship between the field school and local students, encouraging them to work towards conservation in their own community.

Finally, we take a number of fun side trips in Costa Rica; which are hugely popular and a lot of fun. We have taken students to visit cloud forests and coffee/chocolate plantations, white water rafting, zip-lining, sea-turtle watching, and snorkeling.

Space is limited so contact us soon!

For more detailed information please contact treefieldstudies@gmail.com or lfjoachim@comcast.net

Entrance Qualifications:
College courses in biology, primatology, anthropology and or psychology or related subjects

Tuition / Fees:
$2100 US dollars

Support (scholarships, travel):
none

Start + End Dates:
June 15th to July 12th, 2010

Application Deadline:
03/5/10

Comments:
Course includes: field/class instruction, Spanish instruction, high school costs for a needy Costa Rican student, 1-3 fun field trips.

Contact Information:
Dr. Lorna Joachim
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
USA

Website:
http://treefieldstudies.wordpress.com/

E-Mail Address:
treefieldstudies@gmail.com

Post-doctoral fellowship in neurobehavioral genetics

Hiring Organization:
University of California, Los Angeles

Date Posted:
2010-01-24

Position Description:
A two to three year postdoctoral fellowship is available in an NIH-funded international collaborative project focused on phenome-genome studies of the vervet monkey. Based in the Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics at UCLA, the position will require travel to Africa and the Caribbean, and involve coordination of the efforts of a large interdisciplinary research team. Please submit applications to Dr. Nelson Freimer at nfreimer@mednet.ucla.edu

Qualifications/Experience:
Must have a strong background in primatology or a related discipline. Of particular interest are individuals with expertise in biological samples collection, behavioral observation and assessment and/or primate medicine and welfare.

Salary/funding:
NIH support

Contact Information:
Nelson Freimer, M.D.
695 Charles E. Young Drive South, Gonda Building, Room 3506
Los Angeles 90095
USA

E-mail Address:
nfreimer@mednet.ucla.edu

Development and verification of video tools for biodiversity monitoring

Project summary:
This project will use video monitoring of the behaviour of wild insects to answer basic questions about how natural and sexual selection act in the wild. Ideally, it will involve developing systems to automate the collection of data from video recordings of insects carrying individual tags. The overall aims will be to address questions such as how beneficial it is for females to mate with more than one male and how conflicts of interest among males and females and between parents and offspring are resolved. The basic approach will be to conduct field studies of burying beetles and possibly crickets using networks of digital video cameras to record behaviour. This will allow the student to carry out both observational and experimental studies on wild animals, something that has only rarely been done using invertebrates.

This project involves collaboration with a Cornish business supplying video camera wildlife monitoring solutions.

Visit www.exeter.ac.uk/biosciences for further information about our research.

For informal enquiries contact Professor Tom Tregenza at T.Tregenza@exeter.ac.uk

Application criteria:
Applicants should possess at least a 2:1 Honours degree, or equivalent, in either a biological or computing subject. Familiarity with programming and a willingness to develop tools for video analysis would be very advantageous, candidates with this expertise but limited biologic al qualifications are encouraged to apply. Candidates without programming expertise will also be considered if they have a very strong evolutionary biology background.

How to apply:
To apply, visit www.exeter.ac.uk/2010studentships/application and complete the online web form. You will be asked to submit some personal details and upload a full CV, covering letter, and contact details for two academic referees. Your covering letter should outline your academic interests, prior research experience and reasons for wishing to undertake this project.

For general enquiries please contact Claire Guy at C.H.Guy@exeter.ac.uk

Interviews will be held on Tuesday 23 March 2010.

Funding Notes
Three-year studentship: tuition fees (UK/EU rate only) and annual stipend at current research council rate. Due to funding restrictions this studentship is only available to UK and EU applicants.

More informations?

How does urbanization affect the abundance and diversity of species?

This project will focus on the influence of human behaviour on the dynamics and behaviour of species in urban and suburban settings. By altering the environment (e.g. through the formation of gardens, presence of water-butts) or their behaviour (e.g. providing food for wildlife, pet ownership), people can alter the abundance and diversity of species of conservation (e.g. loss of bird diversity in the UK) and potential pest status (e.g. insect vectors of disease in the tropics). As we now live in a world where the majority of people live in such environments, the potential for conflict is growing, and as a result the importance of urban ecology is now increasingly recognised. This project will allow utilise an appropriate group of organisms to allow us to understand and to develop proposals to help mitigate the conflict between urban development and biodiversity. This project can be performed in Reading, or if appropriate, in another urban setting outside of the UK.

The supervisor is Head of Environmental Biology at the University of Reading, has published extensively on interactions between species, and currently supervises three PhD students working on topics including urban conservation and management.

Some of my recent publications are listed below. I have more recently begun working with birds and mammals.

Hazell, S.P. & Fellowes, M.D.E. 2009 Clonal variation affects the structure of the natural enemy assemblage attacking an insect herbivore. Ecological Entomology 34, 34-42.

Printes, L. B., Fellowes, M.D.E. & Callaghan, A. 2008 Clonal variation in acetylcholinesterase biomarkers and life history traits following OP exposure in Daphnia magna. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 71, 519-526.

Hazell, S.P., Vel, T. & Fellowes, M.D.E. 2008 The role of exotic plants in the invasion of Seychelles by the polyphagous insect Aleurodicus disperses: a phylogenetically controlled analysis. Biological Invasions 10, 169-175

Libbrecht, R, Gwynn, D.M. & Fellowes, M.D.E. 2007 Aphidius ervi preferentially attacks the green morph of the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum. Journal of Insect Behavior 20, 25-32.

Hazell, S.P., McClintock, I.A.D. & Fellowes, M.D.E. 2006 Intraspecific heritable variation in life-history traits can alter the outcome of interspecific competition among insect herbivores. Basic and Applied Ecology 7, 215-223.

Gwynn, D.M., Callaghan, A., Gorham, J., Walters, K.F.A. & Fellowes, M.D.E. 2005 Resistance is costly: trade-offs between immunity, fecundity and survival in the pea aphid. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 272, 1803-1808.

Hazell, S.P., Wenlock, C., Bachel, S. & Fellowes, M.D.E. 2005 The costs and consequences of parasitoid attack for the predatory hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus. Evolutionary Ecology Research 7, 669-679.

Hazell, S.P., Gwynn, D.M., Ceccarelli, S. & Fellowes, M.D.E. 2005 Competition and dispersal in the pea aphid: clonal variation and correlations across traits. Ecological Entomology 30, 293-298.

Müller, C.B., Fellowes, M.D.E. & Godfray, H.C.J. 2005 Relative importance of fertilizer addition and exclusion of predators for aphid growth in the field. Oecologia 139, 419-427.

Fellowes, M.D.E., van Alphen, J.J.M. & Jervis, M. 2005 The foraging behaviour of insect natural enemies. In (Pp. 1-71) Insects as Natural Enemies: A Practical Perspective 2nd Edition (Ed. M. Jervis). Kluwer: Dordrecht.

Fellowes, M.D.E., Holloway, G.J. & Rolff, J. (Eds.) 2005 Insect Evolutionary Ecology. CABI Publishing, Wallingford.

More informations?

Postdoctoral positions in collective animal behaviour: experiments and computational methods

Two postdoctoral positions are available in the Collective Behaviour Group, at the Centre for Statistical Mechanics and Complexity - CNR Rome. The positions are funded by the IIT project ART-SWARM, focusing on the experimental and theoretical study of collective behaviour in bird flocks and insect swarms, and its potential applications to artificial systems.

The candidates will work under the supervision of Irene Giardina and Andrea Cavagna. Information on our collective behaviour research can be found at:

http://www.smc.infm.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=45&Itemid=103

A more thorough description of the candidates profiles and of the project's aims can be found below.

Each position is for 1+1 year, starting as early as March 2010 and not later than October 2010. Salary will be in line with Marie Curie (EC) standards. Applicants should send CV, publications list, research interests, and at least two recommendation letters to:

Dr Irene Giardina (subject: postdoc ART-SWARM)
irene.giardina@roma1.infn.it

In order to receive full consideration applications should arrive within February 28, 2010.


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Both candidates must have a strong interest in collective phenomena in the physical and/or biological sciences. Although the two postdocs will work in a highly integrated fashion, the two positions have different and complementary scientific profiles:


Position 1: EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF 3d COLLECTIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR

The postdoc will be part of an experimental team of 3 people; ideally (but not necessarily) he/she will be the team leader. Work will include: setting up a new experimental apparatus for 3d swarm reconstruction; calibration and testing; preparatory field observations; field data-taking; data analysis.

* Prerequisites: background in either experimental physics, or experimental biology, or engineering; good computer skills.

* Bonuses (by no means necessary):
- field work
- Unix/Linux knowledge
- camera/video equipment
- practical stereoscopy
- electronics
- mechanics lab equipment

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Position 2: COMPUTATIONAL METHODS FOR 3d COLLECTIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR

The postdoc will work on the computational tools needed to perform the 3d reconstruction, i.e. to transform the experimental digital images in a 3d data set. He/she will also work on dynamical tracking, in order to produce the full individual trajectories. Finally, the 3d data will be analyzed looking for new biological patterns.

* Prerequisites: background in either statistical physics or computer science; strong programming experience in C++; excellent Unix/Linux knowledge; basic script programming experience (Python/Pearl/...).

* Bonuses (by no means necessary):
- computer vision
- 3d reconstruction
- image processing
- optimization
- montecarlo methods
- numerical simulations
- html/php/sql
- openCV

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Project ART-SWARM
From self-organized animal groups to distributed artificial swarms: exporting natural behavioral rules to mobile robotics


The study of self-organization and collective behavior encompasses fields as diverse as statistical physics, ethology, mathematical biology, control theory, and cooperative robotics. Three-dimensional animal aggregations, as bird flocks, fish schools and insect swarms, provide wonderful examples of emergent self-organization. The major issue, both for theoretical studies and for technological applications, is to understand how self-organization emerges within a system with distributed intelligence. Several multi-agent models of locking and swarming exist, which produce collective behavior starting from simple rules followed by the individuals. Yet, due to the lack of 3D large-scale data, these models are hardly tested against quantitative observations. Moreover, the rules of interaction among the agents are guessed on the basis of common sense, rather than being quantitatively modelled on empirical observations. This is a severe limit. In biological groups individual strategies are selected by evolution to achieve functioning and overall efficiency at collective level. Thus, empirically based information on these
strategies would not only lead to more appropriate models, but also help to design optimal control strategies in artificial systems.

This project has the following objectives:

1. Observe. We will perform quantitative field studies of bird flocks and insect swarms. Using innovative techniques in computer vision, we will reconstruct individual 3D positions and dynamical trajectories in cohesive aggregations of thousands of animals.

2. Understand. By analyzing the data, our aim is to unveil the laws of self-organization and collective behavior in 3D animal aggregations. Spatial and dynamical correlations among the individuals will provide a full characterization of the rules of interaction in the animal groups considered.

3. Discover. Dealing with several species and phyla, endowed with specific individual abilities and facing different collective tasks, we will investigate the crucial link between sensory/cognitive functions and behavioral strategies, and determine how individual cognition regulates group coordination.

4. Model. We will exploit the insight gained from empirical data as an input to develop new 3D models of animal collective behavior. The tools will be multi-agent theory and mathematical biology. Models output will be quantitatively tested against 3D data.

5. Export. We will design new schemes of distributed control quantitatively modelled on 3D animal behavior. Target applications will be cooperative mobile robotics for environmental monitoring, and nanorobotics for medical applications.


------------------------------------

Irene Giardina
SMC-INFM, Department of Physics, University of Rome La Sapienza, P.le A. Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy
ISC-CNR, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185 Roma, Italy
tel: 0039-06-49937460 (ISC) fax: 0039-06-49937440 (ISC) fax: 0039-06-4957697 (Dept.)
irene.giardina@roma1.infn.it irene.giardina@gmail.com
http://www.smc.infm.it http://chimera.roma1.infn.it/IRENE

Field assistants in Evolutionary Ecology of Nightingales

Four field assistant positions are available in an international research project on communication and evolutionary ecology of nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos).

The project is run by the Research Station Petite Camargue Alsacienne, University of Basel (www.camargue.unibas.ch, PD Dr. Valentin Amrhein) and the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, NIOO-KNAW (www.nioo.knaw.nl, Prof. Dr. Marc Naguib).

Fieldwork will be done from April to May 2010, at the Research Station Petite Camargue Alsacienne in France (www.camargue.unibas.ch), and at a study site near Bologna, Italy.

Field assistants will participate in systematic surveys of territory settlement and in an extensive radio telemetry study. Field work will include nocturnal bicycle trips, and field assistants are expected to work on their own at night and in the early morning.

Field assistants will receive 1000 euros for the entire field season, which should cover travel and food expenses. Applicants are expected to stay for the entire field season from the beginning of April until the end of May. The language at the study sites will be English.

The positions will be filled as soon as possible. Applications should be in English and should include, in one single pdf or word file, a curriculum vitae and a letter of motivation. Please provide names and email addresses of two persons who are willing to write a letter of recommendation, and send applications by email to the following address:

Valentin Amrhein

v.amrhein@t-online.de