Current Member - Dr. Julie Morand-Ferron
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Julie Morand-Ferron
Details
Name: Dr. Julie Morand-Ferron
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Email: julie.morand-ferron@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Autobiography
After completing a Biology degree at Université Laval, Québec, Canada, I obtained a PhD from McGill University in 2007. My doctoral fieldwork took me to the Bellairs research station of McGill in Holetown, Barbados, where I studied a foraging innovation, its exploitation by conspecifics, and anti-kleptoparasitic tactics in wild Carib grackles (Quiscalus lugubris). I then moved to Université du Québec à Montréal as a postdoctoral fellow of FQRNT where I studied decision-making, learning and individual differences in behavioural plasticity using flocks of wild-caught nutmeg mannikins (Lonchura punctulata) playing producer-scrounger and ideal free distribution foraging games. I joined the EGI in 2009 as a postdoctoral fellow of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, collaborating with Dr John Quinn on projects related to ecological and individual determinants of innovative problem-solving. In 2010 Dr Quinn and I were jointly awarded a John Fell Research Grant on the "Evolutionary ecology of learning in wild great tits (Parus major) of Wytham woods".
Research Activities
The major goal of my research is to understand how cognition and behaviour are shaped by the selective environment. My research is focused on avian foraging behaviour using experiments in the field and in captivity as well as phylogenetically-informed comparative methods. I use an integrated approach, drawing from behavioural ecology, cognitive ecology and evolutionary ecology. I organise my research activities around two major themes:
- Evolution of innovation and learning
- Consequences of sociality on cognition, behaviour and evolution
See also webpages John Quinn and Ella Cole.
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Wild-caught nutmeg mannikins at UQÀM (photo by Élisabeth Varennes). |
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Carib grackles dunking food in an artificial puddle at Bellairs (photo by Mélisa Veillette). |
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Automated problem-solving device used to study ecological and individual determinants of innovativeness in wild great tits and blue tits of Wytham woods. |
Selected Papers
Morand-Ferron, J. & Quinn, J.L. Larger groups of passerines are more efficient problem-solvers in the wild Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (in press).
Morand-Ferron, J., Varennes, E. and Giraldeau, L.-A. 2010. Individual differences in plasticity and sampling when playing behavioural games. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Read paper online
Dubois, F., Morand-Ferron, J. and Giraldeau, L.-A. 2010. Learning in a game context: strategy choice by some keeps learning from evolving in others. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Read paper online
Morand-Ferron, J., Doligez, B., Dall, S.R.X. and Reader, S.M. 2010. Social information use. In: Breed M. D. and Moore J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, pp. 242-250, Oxford: Academic Press.
Morand-Ferron, J. and Giraldeau, L.-A. 2010. Learning behaviorally stable solutions to producer-scrounger games. Behavioral Ecology 21:343-348. Read paper online
Overington, S.E., Morand-Ferron, J., Boogert, N.J. and Lefebvre, L. 2009. Technical innovations drive the relationship between innovativeness and residual brain size in birds. Animal Behaviour 78: 1001-1010. Read paper online
Morand-Ferron, J., Sol, D. and Lefebvre, L. 2007. Food-stealing in birds: brain or brawn? Animal Behaviour 74: 1725-1734. Read paper online
Morand-Ferron, J., Lefebvre, L., Reader, S. M., Sol, D. & Elvin, S. 2004. Dunking behaviour in Carib grackles. Animal Behaviour 68: 1267-1274. Read paper online
