- BERG - University of Stirling Mailing Lists

This week's BERG: Dr. Alexander Weiss describing personality in the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park
by Donna Kean 16 Oct '17

16 Oct '17

Dear BERGers, This week we have Dr. Alexander Weiss from the University of Edinburgh delivering a talk entitled: “An open data set describing personality in the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park” [cid:image001.png@01D34694.EB96D070] Abstract: Researchers increasingly view animal personality traits as products of natural selection. Alex will present data that describe the personalities of 128 eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) currently living in or who lived their lives in the Kasekela and Mitumba communities of Gombe National Park, Tanzania. He obtained ratings on 24 items from an established, reliable, well-validated questionnaire used to study personality in captive chimpanzee populations. Ratings were made by former and present Tanzanian field assistants who followed individual chimpanzees for years and collected detailed behavioral observations. Interrater reliabilities across items ranged from acceptable to good, but the personality dimensions they formed were not as interpretable as those from captive samples. However, the personality dimensions corresponded to ratings of 24 Kasekela chimpanzees on a different questionnaire in 1973 that assessed some similar traits. These correlations established the repeatability and construct validity of the present ratings, indicating that the present data can facilitate historical and prospective studies that will lead to better understanding of the evolution of personality in chimpanzees and other primates. We look forward to seeing you all there from 5.30pm, with drinks and nibbles as usual! Best, Donna

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This week's BERG: Prof. Christine Caldwell discussing human and nonhuman culture
by Donna Kean 09 Oct '17

09 Oct '17

Dear BERGers, This week we will have a talk from Prof. Christine Caldwell. Christine will be repeating a talk given at the inaugural meeting of the Cultural Evolution Society, held last month in Jena, Germany. The talk will discuss experimental approaches to the study of cultural evolution, particularly in relation to understanding differences between human and nonhuman culture. [cid:image002.jpg@01D3411E.681C0F10] Drinks and snacks from 5.30pm in the common room. We have one BERG slot left for this semester on Wed 22nd November if anyone would like to host a discussion or give a talk. Please use the Doodle poll below if you would like to nab it! https://doodle.com/poll/4gigufnkunz3hzzx Best, Donna

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Talk 11 a.m. this morning in 4U5
by Liz Williamson 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Dear BERGers, Apologies for the quick fire messages. An interesting talk in Biology this morning about elephants and other large mammals. The talk is in 4U5 (thanks to Matt Tinsley). Best, Liz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kirsten Hazelwood <k.j.hazelwood(a)stir.ac.uk> Date: 2 October 2017 at 12:22 Subject: [TEAC] Christopher's Tuesday seminar tomorrow To: "teac-group-mail(a)googlegroups.com" <teac-group-mail(a)googlegroups.com> Hi All, Just a quick reminder about tomorrows seminar at 11am by Christopher Orbell. Chris spends most of his time in Gabon, so we are lucky to have him in the department just now to talk about his PhD research and kick start the seminar series for the Autumn. He will be speaking about his work using camera traps to study ecological connectivity in large mammals. Hope to see you all there Kirstie

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Talk 11 a.m. this morning Gabon camera trap study
by Liz Williamson 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Dear BERGers, An interesting talk in Biology this morning about elephants and other large mammals starting shortly! Sorry I don't know the room number. Best, Liz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kirsten Hazelwood <k.j.hazelwood(a)stir.ac.uk> Date: 2 October 2017 at 12:22 Subject: [TEAC] Christopher's Tuesday seminar tomorrow To: "teac-group-mail(a)googlegroups.com" <teac-group-mail(a)googlegroups.com> Hi All, Just a quick reminder about tomorrows seminar at 11am by Christopher Orbell. Chris spends most of his time in Gabon, so we are lucky to have him in the department just now to talk about his PhD research and kick start the seminar series for the Autumn. He will be speaking about his work using camera traps to study ecological connectivity in large mammals. Hope to see you all there Kirstie

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This week's BERG: Dr Liz Renner hosts a discussion around some controversial archaeological discoveries!
by Donna Kean 02 Oct '17

02 Oct '17

Dear BERGers, This week we have Dr. Elizabeth Renner hosting a discussion around some recent controversial archaeological finds, including the discovery of potential human activity in California from over 100,000 years before humans were thought to arrive in the Americas. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/mastodons-americas-peopling-migr… Drinks and snacks as usual in the common room from 5pm! Best, Donna

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St Andrews Seminar Programme - Semester 1
by Hannah Buchanan-Smith 25 Sep '17

25 Sep '17

Please see attached the St Andrews seminar series ( at 1pm on Fridays in the Old Library of the Psychology Building, St Mary's Quad, South Street, St Andrews), including talks by 29th September 2017 Fumihiro Kano (University of Oxford) Eye tracking uncovered great apes' ability to anticipate other individuals' actions 20th October 2017 Dr Takeo Sasaki (University of Oxford) Social learning and cumulative cultural evolution in the homing pigeon (Columba livia) and the rock ant (Temnothorax albipennis) 17th November 2017 Professor Josep Call (University of St Andrews) Are apes intuitive statisticians? From: Andrew Whiten [mailto:aw2@st-andrews.ac.uk] Sent: 22 September 2017 15:25 To: sprg(a)st-andrews.ac.uk Subject: FW: Seminar Programme - Semester 1 Dear SPRGers, at least those in striking distance and time of St Andrews - Our coming seminar programme has at least three talks that may interest several of you - note new lunchtime time slot - there is usually an associated meal with the speaker sometime like the Friday evening - best wishes - Andy

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This week's BERG: Sophia Daoudi discusses her expedition to re-establish a new long-term field station in Suriname
by Donna Kean 25 Sep '17

25 Sep '17

Dear BERGers, This Wednesday at we will have Sophia Daoudi giving an exciting talk regarding her field work in South America, entitled: "An expedition to re-establish a new long-term field station for conservation & primate research in Suriname." In Sophia's own words: there are a range of benefits to twinning a captive primate research centre with a field site. The Living Links Research Centre was established nine years ago in the Royal Zoological Society Scotland's Edinburgh Zoo. It is a mixed-species exhibit housing two groups of brown capuchins (Sapajus apella) and common squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus), and acts as a public engagement with science centre. The Raleighvallen Nature Reserve, Suriname is one of the largest protected tropical forests in South America. During January-March 2017 the general ecology of the eight sympatric primates in Raleighvallen was studied, with a focus on polyspecific associations Sapajus and Saimiri. [cid:image001.jpg@01D335E3.D0449440] [cid:image002.jpg@01D335E3.D0449440] We look forward to seeing you all there at 5.30pm in the common room. Drinks and snacks as usual! Best, Donna

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BERG Autumn Semester Schedule
by Donna Kean 21 Sep '17

21 Sep '17

Dear BERGers, It was great to see such a good turn out yesterday for our first BERG meeting this year! Thank you to everyone who came along. Please find the current talk schedule attached and a Box link below where you can find updates to the program as they go live. As you can see we still have a few slots left for this semester. Please let me know if you would like to sign up to present a talk or host a discussion, or if you have any suggestions for a speaker that we might like to invite. This is an excellent platform to get friendly feedback on research and to practise your presenting skills. https://stir.box.com/s/pul8dypg12q8hxibkmpywg1xktr9q4lg Looking forward to seeing you all next week. Best wishes, Donna

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First BERG Meeting Tomorrow
by Donna Kean 19 Sep '17

19 Sep '17

Dear all, Tomorrow we will have our first BERG meeting of the year! We will start with informal introductions, followed by a 30-minute talk from Gema Martin-Ordas entitled: “False memories in short-term memories in chimpanzees”. Gema will present a couple of studies which show that chimpanzees' mistakes at recalling are not arbitrary mistakes but false recollections. There will be a discussion after the talk. We are still recruiting volunteers to give a talk or host a discussion for this semester's program, so please do sign up using this Doodle link: https://beta.doodle.com/poll/4gigufnkunz3hzzx<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbeta.doodle.com%2Fpoll%2F4gigu…> There will be drinks and nibbles as usual. Looking forward to seeing you all there. Best, Donna

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BERG starts next week
by Hannah Buchanan-Smith 15 Sep '17

15 Sep '17

Dear BERGers Welcome to the new academic year, and the start of our BERG meetings again on Wednesday 20th September, in the common room (3A94) - 5.30pm SHARP. We have our newest colleague, Dr Gema Martin-Ordas presenting a talk entitled " False memories in short-term memories in chimpanzees". The talk will last about 30 minutes, followed by discussion. We shall also use the first 15-20 minutes of this meeting to introduce ourselves, as we have a lot of new people. We still need to recruit some more speakers for the programme - as we have noted it's a great way to practise talks and develop those valuable presentation skills. Please sign up and/or feel free to suggest local speakers that we may wish to invite. The Doodle poll is here: https://doodle.com/poll/4gigufnkunz3hzzx If you have new students who might wish to be on the BERG mailing list, please send them this e-mail. To sign up to the BERG mailing list new folk must complete the form available here: http://lists.stir.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/berg Donna Kean is kindly organising the BERG seminars this semester, and she will circulate the programme in due course. See you next Wednesday. Drinks and nibbles as usual. All good wishes, Hannah Hannah M. Buchanan-Smith Professor, Behaviour and Evolution Research Group (BERG) Room 3A79, Cottrell Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences University of Stirling Stirling, FK9 4LA Scotland Tel: 01786 467674 Fax: 01786 467641 E-mail: h.m.buchanan-smith(a)stir.ac.uk<mailto:h.m.buchanan-smith@stir.ac.uk> Home page: https://rms.stir.ac.uk/converis-stirling/person/11925 http://marmosetcare.com/ http://www.247animalwelfare.eu/index.html Recently launched: http://refiningdogcare.com/ http://www.refiningdogcare.com/images/RDC%20Flyer.pdf

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