Westneat, David F

Westneat Lab Research

Introduction:

Lab Research Activities Members of my group study the ecological and social forces affecting behavior in insects and birds. A strong focus is the adaptive consequences of behavior, with a special interest in consistent differences among individuals or group across circumstances or flexibility in response to multiple environmental variables. A key approach at present is the use of complex statistical models of both mean and variances in behavior with the goal of understanding what biological processes contribute to variation.

Project:

Research group has started working and learning with Dr. Jeramiah Smith on sequence analysis.  Use of double hierarchical mixed models using Bayesian inference to assess pattern in repeatedly expressed traits such as parental care.

Computation Methods:

Computation involves MCMC analysis of large and complex datasets using an R wrapper script that interfaces with JAGS. All methods are currently available.

Students:

Ian D Connelly, Added on 8/18/2023 on MCC resources

Postdoc:

Ariane Mutzel

PhD Students:

Jacqueline Dillard

Kat Sasser

Ben Cloud

Tim Salzman

Allison McLaughlin

Timothy C Salzman Added 04/13/2021

Undergraduate students:

Olivia Utley

Collaborators:

Dr. Simon Bonner, University of Western Ontario

Software:

sequence aligners (blast, bowtie, bwa) Added on MCC cluster 08/18/2023

SNP/genotype Callers (samtool,,bcftools, Stacks) Added on MCC cluster 08/18/2023

R

Jags

Bugs

SAS