Richard H. Wagner
Konrad Lorenz-Institute for Ethology
Title
Mechanisms of Colony Formation
Abstract
Colonies are aggregations of breeding territories. Animals in a wide array of taxa breed in colonies in which
high density often leads to costs such as increased aggression and disease and parasite transmission.
Thus the widespread existence of colonial breeding creates an evolutionary enigma. The traditional approach
to studying coloniality has been to search for benefits that might outweigh such costs. However, after
decades of research using this approach we still lack a consensus on how colonies form.
This seminar will describe new approaches that attempt to identify the mechanisms that produce social
aggregations, rather than the benefits that might accrue from them. I will present the "Hidden Lek" hypothesis
which proposes that the same mechanisms that cause males of promiscuous species to aggregate their display
territories also cause males of monogamous species to aggregate their breeding territories, producing colonies.
My colleagues and I are testing predictions of the Hidden Lek hypothesis using a combination of field studies
and genetics in birds, and colony formation experiments in fish. Another new idea is the Habitat Copying
hypothesis which proposes that animals use "Public Information", which is information extracted from the
performance of others, to select breeding sites. My colleagues and I are testing both hypotheses with habitat
selection experiments in seabirds and in Drosophila.
We are also synthesizing the two hypotheses into the commodity selection framework which is built on the
premise that when animals select the commodities necessary for reproduction, such as mates and breeding sites,
they aggregate as a byproduct. This framework is the basis for a phylogenetic comparative study that examines
whether coloniality has throughout evolutionary history decreased predation, as is generally assumed, or
increased it.
Finally, I will suggest how studying the mechanisms of social aggregation pertains to applied issues such as
nature conservation.
Education
| 1991
| D. Phil.
| Oxford University
Department of Zoology
|
| 1986
| M.F.S.
| Yale University
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies,
Wildlife Ecology Program
|
| 1981
| B.A.
| University of Arizona
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
|
Current positions
| Senior scientist
| Konrad Lorenz Institute,
Austrian Academy of Sciences
| April 2000 - present
|
| Research Associate
| Smithsonian Institution
| 1997 – 2000
2003 - present
|
Positions held
| Adjunct Professor and Research Associate
| York University
| 1997 - 2000
|
| Visiting Associate Professor
| CNRS - Institute of Ecology,
University of Pierre & Marie Curie,
Paris
| April - Aug 1996,
Feb - April 1999
|
| Research Fellow
| York University
| 1994 - 1996
|
| Research Fellow
| Smithsonian Institution
| 1991 - 1994
|
Publications pertaining to coloniality
- Danchin E, Giraldeau L-A, Valone T, Wagner RH (2004) Public Information: From Nosy Neighbors to Cultural Evolution.
Science 305 (5683): 487-491
- Wagner RH, Danchin E (2003): Conspecific copying: a general mechanism of social aggregation.
Animal Behaviour 65: 405-408
- Danchin, E, Wagner RH (2000): Benefits of membership.
Science 287: 804
- Wagner RH, Danchin, E, Boulinier, T, Helfenstein, F. (2000): Colonies as byproducts of commodity selection.
Behavioral Ecology 11 (5): 572-573
- Danchin E, Wagner RH (1997): The evolution of coloniality: the emergence of new perspectives.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12 (9): 342-347
- Wagner RH (1997): Hidden leks: sexual selection and the clustering of avian territories.
In: Avian reproductive tactics: female and male perspectives (P. G. Parker, N. Burley, eds.), pages 123-145, Ornithological Monograph Vol 49, American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D. C.
- Wagner RH, Schug, MD, Morton, ES (1996): Condition-dependent control of paternity by female purple martins: implications for coloniality.
Behavorial Ecology and Sociobiology 38 (6): 379-389
- Wagner RH (1993): The pursuit of extra-pair copulations by female birds: a new hypothesis of colony formation.
Journal of theoretical Biology 163 (3): 333-346
|
