Post-Bac Research
Playbacks as a Tool for Management and Understanding Relationship Dynamics
Playbacks as a Tool for Management and Understanding Relationship Dynamics
I completed a post-bac position with Dr. Elizabeth Hobson in 2021 where I led a vocalization and playback project within her monk parakeet system. I'm primarily interested in (1) how we can use playbacks to assist in the management of their urban populations and (2) exploring how we can use playbacks to learn more about an individual's social connections and memory.
Other publications from the monk parakeet system can be viewed on the Hobson Lab website.
Other publications from the monk parakeet system can be viewed on the Hobson Lab website.
Non-native Species Management
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Utilizing animal behavior for conservation and wildlife management is becoming more popular due it's low cost, low risk, and high effectiveness. Vocalizations are a popular form of communication and is a conspicuous behavior that can result in an array of behaviors. We are interested in learning what vocalizations work best for controlling the urban, non-native monk parakeet populations.
This work was published in Animal Behavior & Cognition: Estien et al. (2022) Temporary behavioral responses to playbacks by pest parrots and implications for management. https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.09.04.01.2022 |
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Social Affiliation and Competency
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Social relationships with conspecifics can provide many benefits, but the strength of relationships can fluctuate over time in response to previous interactions and current group dynamics. Being able to categorize these affiliative relationships by strength or importance could help individuals better prioritize social investments that affect the formation or persistence of social connections. However, we still do not have a general understanding of when these shifts in the salience of dyadic relationships occur or how to detect these across species. We are interested in combining field methods and observational data to better understand relationship salience, memory, and plasticity.
The preliminary results of this work was presented at ABS 2022 as a lightning talk! The title of the talk was: "Playback Responses as a Tool to Understand Relationship Dynamics" and you can view the slides here. |
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Additional Monk Parakeet Work
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1) van der Marel et al. (including CO Estien) (2023). Perturbations highlight importance of social history in parakeet rank dynamics.
2) Preprint: van der Marel et al. (including CO Estien) (2023). Perturbations of key individuals trigger shifts in group-level dominance patterns |
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