Dr Erin Siracusa

About me:

I am a behavioural ecologist broadly interested in the ecology and evolution of social behaviour. For almost all organisms (including seemingly solitary ones!) an important aspect of their environment is the conspecifics with which they might compete, cooperate, mate, or otherwise interact. I am interested in the potential for these social interactions to shape the behaviour, life history and fitness of individuals. By studying these patterns I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the processes leading to the evolution of complex social systems.

My research is primarily focused on free-living populations of mammals, and uses a combination of long-term data analysis, behavioural observations, and field experiments to address these questions.

I did my PhD on the Kluane Red Squirrel Project, a long-term research initiative studying the ecology and evolution of red squirrels in the southwest Yukon, and continue to collaborate with researchers on that project.

I am now working on a collaborative project studying a free-ranging population of rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico. I am interested in using this study system to explore how social behaviour might contribute to the process of senescence.

My broad interests lie in the evolution of social behaviour. My previous work has explored social interactions in “solitary” species and used this to test important questions about the mechanisms underlying conflict resolution and the evolution of cooperation. I am currently interested in how social behaviour might contribute to our understanding of senescence by exploring how and why social behaviour changes across the lifespan.

2008-2012: BSc(Hons) Biology & English, St. Lawrence University, United States
2013-2018: PhD Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Canada

2020-Present: Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Exeter
2019-2020: Postdoctoral Researcher & Kluane Red Squirrel Project Coordinator, University of Guelph