S2E8 Kate Laskowski on the Development of Individual Differences and Data Reproducibility

In this episode, Matthew speaks with guest Kate Laskowski (@KateLaskowski), an Assistant Professor in the Department of Evolution, and Ecology at the University of California, Davis

They discuss what it means for animals to display individuality, how frequent individual repeatable differences are, and Kate's work in Amazon mollies that attempts to identify the sources and consequences of individual differences in a naturally clonal species. Then after the break they discuss data reproducibility, including advice from Kate about low-effort steps that researchers can take to make their data more readily reproducible.

This week's Two-Minute Takeaway comes from Mauna Desari (@chumblebiome), an NSF Postdoc at the University of Pittsburgh. Mauna studies the causes and consequences of variation in the microbiome in wild animals.

Papers relevant to today's show:

1.  The meta-analysis of repeatability of behaviors:

Bell, Alison M., Shala J. Hankison, and Kate L. Laskowski. "The repeatability of behaviour: a meta-analysis." Animal behaviour 77, no. 4 (2009): 771-783.

2. The paper describing short and long-term winner/loser effects in mollies

Laskowski, K. L., Wolf, M., & Bierbach, D. (2016). The making of winners (and losers): how early dominance interactions determine adult social structure in a clonal fish. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 283(1830), 20160183.

3. Emergence of individuality in clonal fish with near-identical rearing conditions:

Bierbach, D., Laskowski, K. L., & Wolf, M. (2017). Behavioural individuality in clonal fish arises despite near-identical rearing conditions. Nature communications, 8(1), 1-7.

Credits:

The Animal Behavior Podcast is created by a team of animal behavior researchers and audio professionals. Come meet us here! We receive production support from the Cornell Broadcast studio directed by Bert Odom-Reed, and financial support from the Animal Behavior Society.