Research interests

The word cloud above (made using wordle) gives an idea of the lab’s research interests – it's based on the abstracts of our publications. By happy accident it vaguely resembles our main study species, the guppy.

We study the mechanisms, development, and evolution of animal behaviour, with a focus on social cognition. In particular, our laboratory studies how diverse patterns of environmental variability shape reliance on different information sources, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying social learning, and the evolutionary consequences of behavioural flexibility.

We principally work with fish, but have experience with rodent, avian, insect, primate and human study systems, in both the field (Quebec, Caribbean, Europe) and laboratory.

Keywords

Social learning; behavioural flexibility; behavioural innovation; cognitive evolution; comparative analysis; cultural evolution; individual differences; phenotypic plasticity.

Some of our current collaborations

Nadia Aubin-Horth

Département de Biologie, Université Laval, Canada 

Ryan Earley

Biological Sciences, U. Alabama, USA

Andrew Hendry

Redpath & Biology, McGill, Canada

Rachel Page

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama

Denis Réale

Biological Sciences, UQAM, Canada