The University of Chicago's Institute for Mind and Biology sponsored a symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting on February 13th in Chicago. This year's meeting's theme- Our Planet and Its Life: Origins and Futures -recognized that 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species. As promoted by AAAS, "new understanding of the processes that fascinated Darwin continues to be the focus of intense research 150 years later. Indeed every discipline can demonstrate its own unique evolutionary path and speculate on where it may lead."

ABS member Jill Mateo organized a three-hour, six-speaker symposium called "Beyond the Beagle: Evolutionary Approaches to the Study of Social Behavior in the 21st Century". Darwin's theories of natural and sexual selection are the core of the study of animal behavior, which integrates ethology, neuroscience, endocrinology, ecology and evolution. In the past 40 years, major theoretical refinements, such as kin selection and parent-offspring conflict, have stimulated research in a wide range of taxa. However, in recent years there has been an explosion of technological advances which have dramatically changed the nature and range of phenomena studied. This symposium highlighted several examples of novel behavioral research on animals living in social groups, illustrating how these new tools have transformed our understanding of the processes of organization at physiological, individual and group levels. These studies emphasized endocrinological mechanisms, communicative signals, genomics, metabolic actions, robotics and social-network modeling. With these new tools we are gaining a better knowledge of the costs and benefits of group living and sexual reproduction. In particular, researchers are able to gather elegant data to answer evolutionary questions about free-living animals which previously could only be attempted in laboratory settings. In sum, these approaches offer exciting new windows into the mechanisms and processes of social evolution, and are opening frontiers for the next century of study.

Speakers included:
Gail Patricelli (UC-Davis) Birds and Bots: Using Robots and Sensor Arrays to Study Sexual Selection in the Wild
Jan Randall (San Francisco State University) Adapted For Life in the Wild: Hormonal Control of Behavior in Mammals
David McDonald (University of Wyoming) Facebook for Birds: Cooperative Sex and the Double Manakin
Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell (Stanford University) Sociality in African Elephants: Novel Forms of Communication and Leadership Tactics
Kevin McGraw (Arizona State University) Carotenoids as Narcissistic Agents of Color Evolution: A Bird's Eye View
Jill Mateo (University of Chicago) Sex and Smells: Kin Recognition, the Armpit Effect and Mate Choice

We started our day at Chicago's Hyatt Regency at a Press Panel, moderated by The Guardian's Tim Radford. Five panelists each spoke about their research for about five minutes, after which a room full of journalists asked follow-up questions.

From left: Tim Radford, Dave McDonald, Gail Patricelli, Kevin McGraw, Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell, and Jan Randall

Listen to Gail's podcast

Read the press about the symposia speakers! These are just some of many news pieces generation by the symposium.
The BBC on Caitlin's elephant work
The BBC on Dave's lekking birds
ScienceDaily on Jill's hibernation results
Smithsonian on Gail's fembots
Sciencemode on Kevin's carotenoids
ScienceDaily on Jan's studies of hormones


The symposium was also kindly supported by The Animal Behavior Society.