Name: Mohumagadi (short: Magadi; “Queen” in Tswana language) Position in the group: ZIF001 is the dominant female. Date of birth: 14-September-2008 History: Born in Cologne Zoo (Germany), ZIF001 was moved to Parc Zoologique et Botanique de Mulhouse (France) in July 2010, with two of her sisters (click here for a video about their arrival).…
Website: http://kendrasmyth.weebly.com/ Contact: kendrasmyth@gmail.com Eco-immunology in wild meerkats As an immunologist turned ecologist or, more concisely, an ecoimmunologist, I am interested in understanding the proximate social and endocrine mechanisms underlying individual variation in immune function, as well as the fitness consequences of this variation. Meerkats are an interesting…
Website: http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/en/staff/phd/gall-gabriella.html Contact: gabriella.gall@yahoo.de Group coordination during foraging in meerkats (Suricata suricatta) Animals living in cohesive groups need to coordinate their activities, for example when making decisions about their foraging destination or timing of travel. Thereby individual group members need to compromise to overcome potential conflicts of interest.…
Vocal Coordination in the Meerkat “Watchman’s Song” Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies University of Zurich Contact: ramona.rauber@ieu.uzh.ch Animals often face the trade-off between foraging and anti-predator vigilance. The sentinel system represents one way of minimizing this trade-off, by having one individual on raised guard, scanning the environment…
Website: http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/en/staff/postdocs/goncalves.html Contact: ines.goncalves@ieu.uzh.ch Activational and maternal effects on meerkat vocal communication In social species like meerkats, animals form complex relationships and social structures that require sustained communication between group members in order to be maintained. Animal vocalisations, like human voices, can provide a plethora of information regarding…
Website: http://www2.unine.ch/ecophy/page-26828_en.html; University of Pretoria, South Africa & University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland Contact: rutemmendonca@gmail.com Oxidative stress in Damaraland mole-rats Helping frequently takes the form of energetically demanding activities, which involve high cellular oxygen consumption and the creation of by-product reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS production can lead to…
Website: http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/philippe-vullioud Contact: philippe.vullioud@gmail.com Socio-endocrine mechanisms of individual variation in cooperative behaviours Large differences in cooperative effort are a universal characteristic of cooperative societies. There is growing evidence suggesting that individuals can adjust their cooperative investment as a function of its costs and benefits, yet the physiological causes and evolutionary…
Website: http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/jack-thorley Contact: jbt27@cam.ac.uk Life history trade-offs in co-operative breeders The social mole-rats, of which Damaraland mole-rats present an extreme case, are physiological enigmas, as exemplified by their ability to withstand hypoxia, their resistance to cancer-like phenotypes, and their extraordinary longevity. Such characteristics have catapulted social mole-rats (largely…
Website: http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-markus-zottl Contact: mz338@cam.ac.uk Variation in cooperative behaviour, life-histories and individual fitness in Damaraland mole-rat My main research interest is the evolution and the maintenance of helping and seemingly altruistic behaviour in animals. My interest originates from a deep fascination for animals and in particular for animal behaviour…
Endocrine Research Laboratory, University of Pretoria, South Africa http://www2.up.ac.za/zoology/old_zoology/staff.php?person=211 Contact: jscheun@zoology.up.ac.za Hormonal correlates of dominance structure in meerkats Although I am interested in a variety of fields such as conservation and general ecology, my main focus lies with the study of the endocrine activity present in different species.…