My research examines the causes and consequences of individual variation in social behavior.
Currently, my research focuses on the facultatively social subterranean rodent, the highland tuco-tuco (Ctenomys opimus) of northwestern Argentina. This population has both solitary (asocial) and group-living (social) individuals, providing an ideal opportunity to examine the effects of variation in sociality on conspecifics experiencing similar ecological conditions. To address these themes, I combine social network and kinship analyses of wild-caught individuals with lab analyses of individual gut microbial diversity and fecal stress hormones. |
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