Université du Québec à Montréal
Postdoctoral fellow candidate
Supervisor: Denis Réale
Start: 2013-05-01
End: 2014-05-31

Project

The pace-of-life syndrome in Eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus)
The general aim of this project is to test mechanistic links between behavioural, physiological and life-history traits at the intra-specific level. Based on a heuristic theoretical framework these traits coevolved as response to long-term selection pressures forming the pace-of-life syndrome. Although powerful relationships between life-history and physiological traits have been demonstrated between species, it remains open whether (1) these relationships exist as well among individuals within populations and (2) intrinsic differences in behaviour are part of the pace-of-life syndrome. Furthermore, the directions of functional relationships between important parts of the pace-of-life syndrome are not well resolved. In this project, I will focus on a key pace-of-life axis and test specific predictions of two contrasting hypotheses on the links between energy metabolism, behavioural phenotype and life-history in a small rodent species, the Eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus).

Keywords

Behavioral Ecology, Personnalité animale/Animal personality, evolution

Publications

1- Social System of Microcebus berthae, the World?s Smallest Primate
Dammhahn, Melanie, Peter M. Kappeler
2005 International Journal of Primatology

2- Is risk taking during foraging a personality trait? A field test for cross-context consistency in boldness
Dammhahn, Melanie, Laura Almeling
2012 Animal Behaviour

3- Individual flexibility in energy saving: body size and condition constrain torpor use
Vuarin, Pauline, Melanie Dammhahn, Pierre-Yves Henry,
2013 Functional Ecology

4- Spatial memory in the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus)
Lührs, Mia-Lana, Melanie Dammhahn, Peter M. Kappeler, Claudia Fichtel
2009 Animal Cognition

5- Strength in numbers: males in a carnivore grow bigger when they associate and hunt cooperatively
Luhrs, M.-L., M. Dammhahn, P. Kappeler
2012 Behavioral Ecology

6- An unusual case of cooperative hunting in a solitary carnivore
Lührs, Mia-Lana, Melanie Dammhahn
2009 Journal of Ethology

7- Trophic Niche Differentiation and Microhabitat Utilization in a Species-rich Montane Forest Small Mammal Community of Eastern Madagascar
Dammhahn, Melanie, Voahangy Soarimalala, Steven M. Goodman
2013 Biotropica

8- Scramble or contest competition over food in solitarily foraging mouse lemurs (Microcebusspp.): New insights from stable isotopes
Dammhahn, Melanie, Peter M. Kappeler
2009 American Journal of Physical Anthropology

9- Females go where the food is: does the socio-ecological model explain variation in social organisation of solitary foragers?
Dammhahn, Melanie, Peter M. Kappeler
2009 Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

10- Comparative Feeding Ecology of Sympatric Microcebus berthae and M. murinus
Dammhahn, Melanie, Peter M. Kappeler
2008 International Journal of Primatology

11- Small-scale coexistence of two mouse lemur species (Microcebus berthae and M. murinus) within a homogeneous competitive environment
Dammhahn, Melanie, Peter M. Kappeler
2008 Oecologia

12- Are personality differences in a small iteroparous mammal maintained by a life-history trade-off?
Dammhahn, M.
2012 Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences