Recent Courses

EE BIOL 129- Animal Behavior
EE BIOL 188- Special Courses in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Research Areas

Behavior, Ecology, Theory

Research Interests

Many biological systems are complex aggregates of multiple agents working together towards collective, higher-order goals, and evolution acts on variation in these emergent collective properties. There is no central control dictating the activities of members in the assembly. Instead, agents use local signals that determine their behavior and are received through an intricate interaction network resulting in collective phenotypes. Thus, the composition of a group and the way its members interact affects the success of the group as a whole, just as the composition of any sports team dictates its success in the league.

The Pinter-Wollman lab examines the emergence of collective outcomes from group composition by combining field and lab studies with computer simulations, theoretical work, image analysis, and social network analysis.

Selected Publications

Barbee B. & Pinter-Wollman N. 2022. Nutritional needs and predation risk combine to shape foraging decisions in ants. Current Zoology. zoac089 (link) https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoac089

Madrzyk M. & Pinter-Wollman N. 2022 Colonies of ants allocate exploratory individuals to where they are ecologically needed. Current Zoology. zoac065 (link) https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoac065

Michelangeli M., Martin J.M., Pinter-Wollman N., Ioannou C.C., McCallum E.S., Bertram M.G. & Brodin T. 2022 Predicting the impacts of chemical pollutants on animal groups. TREE. 37(9): 789-802 (link) (PDF) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.05.009

O’Fallon S., Horna Lowell E.S., Daniels D. & Pinter-Wollman N. 2022 Extrinsic and intrinsic effects on nest architecture. Behavioral Ecology arac026 (PDF)
https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arac026

Newmann K. & Pinter-Wollman N. 2022. The effect of resource availability on interspecific competition between a native and an invasive ant. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 377:20210146 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0146 (PDF)

Sharma N., Gadagkar R. & Pinter-Wollman N. 2022. A reproductive heir has a central position in multilayer social networks of primitively eusocial paper wasps. Animal Behaivour.185: 21-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.12.011

Miller J.S., Wan E., O’Fallon S. & Pinter-Wollman N. 2021.Modularity and connectivity of nest structure scale with colony size. Evolution. doi:10.1111/evo.14402 (PDF) (bioRxiv)

Lemanski N., Cook C.N., Ozturk C., Smith B. & Pinter-Wollman N. 2021. The effect of individual learning on collective foraging in honey bees in complex environments. Animal Behaviour. 179: 113-123 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.06.033

Hobson E.#, Silk M.#, Fefferman N.H., Larremore D., Rombach M., Shay S., & Pinter-Wollman N. 2021. A guide to choosing and implementing reference models for social network analysis. Biological Reviews. doi: 10.1111/brv.12775 (PDF)