Dr. Theodore Stankowich – Darwin Postdoctoral Fellow

University of Massachusetts, Amherst Ted Stankowich

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Research Interests                                                                        

Rapid recognition of and effective response to predators are two of the most critical day-to-day behavioral requirements that exist for individual animals, yet the ways in which prey assess risk and make decisions about defense and flight are relatively unexplored.  My research program explores the cognitive and evolutionary mechanisms that shape and constrain risk assessment and antipredatory behavior in animals. Through this work, I aim to integrate the fields of psychobiology and animal cognition with the study of predator-prey ecology and behavior.  A primary goal of my research is to understand how animals perceive potential threats in their environment, assess the level of threat that they pose, and decide when to flee using a cost-benefit approach.  To accomplish this, I am using both field and laboratory experiments, along with mathematical modeling. My work has shown that animals are capable of using complex decision rules and weighing the role of a tremendous number of environmental, predatory, and physiological factors during risk assessment.  In combination with empirical studies, my work employs a conceptual framework for understanding real-time risk assessment during predatory encounters and how individual variation in behavior affects this decision-making process. 

My interest in antipredator behavior drives the research questions I ask and systems I work in.  Using different model systems (both vertebrate and invertebrate) in both the field and the laboratory, I study how different aspects of an animal’s biology affect the decisions it makes when confronted by a predator, and I aim to integrate disparate areas of study rarely linked with the study of predator-prey ecology.  I believe these links will seed the field of animal behavior with new insights and theoretical advances in the years to come.

For information on the 2008 ISBE Symposium on Decision-Making During Predator Prey Encounter, click here.

Publications (PDF reprints available via links below)

11. Stankowich, T. (in press). Tail-flicking, tail-flagging, and tail position in ungulates with special reference to black-tailed deer. Ethology.

10. Stankowich, T. & Coss, R. G. 2008 (in press). Alarm walking in Columbian black-tailed deer: its characterization and possible antipredatory signaling functions. Journal of Mammalogy, 89(3), XXX-XXX.

9. Stankowich, T. 2008. Invited Review (Quantifying Behavior the JWatcher Way, Blumstein & Daniel 2007). Integrative and Comparative Biology, Advance Access published on February 14, 2008, doi:10.1093/icb/icn005.

8. Stankowich, T. & Coss, R. G. 2007. Effects of risk assessment, predator behavior, and habitat on escape behavior in Columbian blacktailed deer. Behavioral Ecology, 18(2), 358-367. REPRINT

7. Stankowich, T. & Coss, R. G. 2007. The re-emergence of felid camouflage with the decay of predator recognition in deer under relaxed selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 274, 175-182. REPRINT

6. Stankowich, T. & Coss, R. G. 2006. Effects of predator behavior and proximity on risk assessment in Columbian blacktailed deer. Behavioral Ecology, 17(2), 246-254, COVER PHOTOGRAPH. REPRINT

5. Stankowich, T. & Blumstein, D. T. 2005. Fear in animals: a meta-analysis and review of risk assessment. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 272, 2627-2634. REPRINT; ONLINE APPENDIX

4. Stankowich, T. 2003. Marginal predation methodologies and the importance of predator preferences. Animal Behaviour, 66, 589-599. REPRINT

3. Stankowich, T. 2003. Invited Review (The African Wild Dog, Creel & Creel 2002). Ethology, 109, 613-616.

2. Stankowich, T. & Sherman, P.W. 2002. Pup shoving behavior in adult naked mole rats. Ethology, 108, 975-992. REPRINT

1. Bell, A. M., Davis, J. M., Debose, J. L., Johnson, J. C., Long, S. L., Mabry, K. E., Stankowich, T. & Watters, J. V. 2002. Greatest hits in behavioral ecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 17, 296.