| Awards and Outreach | -> | ABS Keynote/Fellow Lecutres 1998 |
Dr. Sidney A. Gauthreaux, Jr., Professor of Zoology at Clemson University, is one of the pioneers in the use of radar to study bird movements in the atmosphere, and he has been particularly interested in bird migration across the Gulf of Mexico and over the eastern United States. Within the last few years, modern Doppler weather radar has revolutionized the study of bird migration, making it possible to monitor even more closely the movements of birds through the atmosphere. With modern advances in weather radar coverage in the United States (mosaics containing data from 164 radar stations can be formed into a single national image), scientists can explore how large-scale weather systems and topographic features influence the large-scale migrations of birds. This level of detail allows Dr. Gauthreaux, other researchers, and bird watchers to forecast migration waves and identify geographical areas where birds are stopping over on their migratory journeys "northward" in spring and "southward" in fall. The radar ornithology work has important applications for the conservation of migratory birds. Currently, the department of the Interior and the Nature Conservancy are using information gathered by Dr. Gauthreaux on important migration stopover areas in an effort to evaluate these areas for habitat protection projects. The Department of Defense is providing funding for the archiving of the national mosaic radar images of bird migration at Clemson University so that the year-to-year variation in migration can be assessed and used for long-term monitoring of the health of populations of North American migrating birds. Not only is Dr. Gauthreaux's refinement of these analytical tools of great service to conservationists, they are also of great interest to meteorologists and members of the aviation community. Meteorologists must know when migrating birds are influencing displays on and measurements by doppler weather radar, and flight safety requires knowledge of hazardous concentrations of migrating birds in the atmosphere if bird-aircraft collisions are to be avoided.
Over the past 30 years, Dr. Gauthreauxs research efforts have yielded over 125 academic publications, including peer-reviewed papers, a dozen book chapters, and an edited a book. This productive career has yielded him many honors, among them being named fellow of several other societies including the American Ornithologists Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft. In addition to being a current fellow, he has served as President of the Animal Behavior Society. He has also served for 12 years as Chair of the South Carolina Heritage Trust Advisory Board, and was recently named Conservationist of the Year by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation.
Dr. Gauthreaux embodies what makes the study of animal behavior so special: he sees himself as one of the fortunate individuals who can combine their vocation and avocation. Studying birds during migration is part of his research, however during the rest of the year he observes, draws and paints birds for pleasure.
Dr. H. Jane Brockmann, Professor and Chair of Zoology at the University of Florida, Gainesville, is a specialist in the study of the evolution of behavior and decision making in animals. Over the past 20 years, animal behaviorists have identified alternative strategies or tactics in many species. These are systems in which individuals of the same population have more than one discrete means of achieving the same end. For example, male horseshoe crabs can use one of two methods to obtain a mate: a male can hold on to one female and fertilize her eggs as they are deposited in the sand on the beach, or he can be a "satellite" male, moving from one mating pair to another, releasing his sperm over the eggs of many females. Alternative strategies are part of a much larger puzzle in evolutionary biology: How are different patterns of behavior or color or structure maintained in a population? That is, how can organisms behave in such different ways? Why is there not one "optimal" strategy? Understanding such diversity requires that we study the mechanisms, development, and evolutionary history of the trait, as well as its adaptiveness. In her talk, Dr. Brockmann will define and organize the problems and questions involved in the study of alternative strategies, evaluate how research has been conducted, and suggest which problems need to be investigated further to aid our understanding of the evolution of alternative strategies.
Dr. Brockmann teaches Animal Behavior in both the Zoology department and the College of Veterinary Medicine, and in 1995 she was the first recipient of the Wm. C. Brown Animal Behavior Teaching Award from the Animal Behavior Society. Sixteen graduate students have completed degrees under her direction, and she is presently directing six others. She and her students study a diversity of topics and organisms, including the behavior of wasps, horseshoe crabs, damselflies and birds. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Brockmann's research efforts have yielded more than 35 academic publications, including peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.
In addition to her teaching and advising roles, Dr. Brockmann is very active in the academic community. She was elected a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society in 1995, and she has served as Treasurer and President of ABS. She is presently the editor of the journal Ethology, Vice-secretary General of the International Ethological Conference, Secretary/Treasurer of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and she is a Councilor in the International Society for Behavioral Ecology.
Dr. Brockmann describes her study of behavior as trying to piece together an incredibly complex puzzle of how animals respond to their world, and why those responses are adaptive. What she most enjoys is observing some odd thing that an animal does, and trying to understand exactly what it is doing and why. Animals live in entirely different worlds from our own, and it is an extraordinary challenge for us to take ourselves outside of our world long enough to understand what individuals of other species are responding to, let alone why such behavior is adaptive.
Dr. Bennett G. Galef, Professor of Psychology at McMaster University, is a leader in the study of social learning. Dr. Galef began his academic studies as an undergraduate at Princeton, received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, and has been at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, for the past 30 years. His interests are centered on the role of social interactions in biasing learning in adaptive directions, and the crucial consequences of these biases to behavioral development. Using rat foraging behavior as a model, he has found a significant role of social interactions in learning. For example, by feeding rats foods with novel flavors such as cinnamon or cocoa, he found that they learn from each other about what foods are available and apparently safe to eat. That is, a rat that sniffs another rat and smells cocoa will readily eat cocoa-flavored food, even if it has never encountered such food before. However, social interactions do not allow rats to learn what foods to avoid; although a sick rat has cocoa-flavored breath, a social partner will not avoid cocoa-flavored food. These studies have greatly improved our understanding of the impact of social behavior on learning and why learning may be adaptive to wild animals. Dr. Galef has published his research in over 150 peer-reviewed papers.
In addition to his experimental work and writing, Dr. Galef is very active in the academic community. He is a fellow of several societies in addition to the Animal Behavior Society, including the American Psychological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Currently, he is serving as editor of the Animal Behavior Societys journal, on the editorial boards of numerous other journals, and on the organizing committees of a number of international conferences.
Apart from his scientific interest in animals and their behavior, Dr. Galef enjoys observing animals in his hobbies. He is a world traveler and experienced photographer of wildlife; a trip to Botswana allowed him to practice this avocation. While at home, he is an avid fly fisherman, another activity requiring patience and careful observation of the natural world.
by Marta Hersek & Linden Higgins