Collective animal behaviour through time

Since first studying animal behaviour Dr Ioannou has been interested in the evolution of group living and how groups form and are maintained over short time scales. These interests were further shaped by their PhD with Professor Jens Krause at the University of Leeds and a postdoc with Professor Iain Couzin at Princeton University. Dr Ioannou is now an Associate Professor (Reader) in Behavioural Ecology at the University of Bristol. Their research has covered multiple aspects of group living, particularly the interaction between the behaviour of predators and social interactions in prey, and how inter-individual differences in groups interacts with group decision making. More recently, their research includes how predator and collective behaviour is affected by anthropogenic change in environmental variables, such as turbidity and anthropogenic noise. They use fish as a model system, both in the laboratory and in the field.

Dr Laskowski's research investigates the evolutionary and developmental drivers of individual behavioural variation. She is especially interested in the role of social dynamics in shaping patterns of behavioral variation. Dr Laskowski has worked in many systems with particular expertise in fish. Currently she is exploiting the Amazon molly, a naturally clonal fish which allows her to disentangle the influences of genetic and experiential cues on behaviour. Dr Laskowski completed her Bachelor's at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in 2006 working with Jeff Leips. She then moved to the University of Illinois where she worked with Alison Bell for her PhD. After her PhD, Dr Laskowski moved to the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries in Berlin Germany where she worked with Max Wolf, Jens Krause and Thomas Mehner. Since 2019, she has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Evolution & Ecology at the University of California Davis.