Ann Hedrick

Research Interests

My research program focuses on the evolution of behavior, particularly the evolution of animal personalities, mating behavior, and antipredator behavior. I am especially interested in the interplay between sexual selection and natural selection. My research falls into three general areas of inquiry: (1) Animal personality and measuring correlations between different behavioral traits; (2) Studies of individual variation in mating preferences, (3) Investigating links between mating behavior and anti-predator behavior. For this work, I am using the field cricket, Gryllus integer. In this species, males call to attract females using a rapid trill, and females generally prefer males with longer durations of uninterrupted trilling to those with shorter durations. Call duration is a heritable trait. I am now investigating correlations among functionally different behavioral traits ("behavioral syndromes") and the genetic basis for these correlations, causes for differences in mating selectivity among females, and mating behavior and anti-predator behavior in populations that differ in predation. My work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Academy of Finland.

Animal personality; correlations among functionally different traits; genetic basis for individual differences in behavior; mate choice and sexual selection; antipredator behavior.

CBS Graduate Group Affiliations

• Animal Behavior Graduate Group