Université du Québec à Montréal
Candidat Ph.D.
superviseur(e): Pierre-Olivier Montiglio
Clint Kelly
Début: 2020-05-01
Fin: 2024-10-01
Page personnelle

Projet

L'écologie virtuelle pour l'étude des interactions prédateur-proie
Predator-prey interactions are important drivers of population and community dynamics. When they hunt, individual predators differ in the tactics that they use to capture prey. In the past decades, a vast amount of theoretical and empirical work has shown that predators affect prey behaviour and population structure via consumptive and non-consumptive interactions. However, we have limited knowledge on the mechanisms driving individual differences in decision-making when predators hunt. When taken into account, this behavioural variation can have considerable impacts on the predictive power of predator-prey models. Thus, it is important to unravel how individual differences in hunting tactics are shaped and maintained across time and contexts in natural populations. The main objective of my research is to quantify how predator-prey interactions, habitat structure, and learning shape between- and within-individual variation in hunting behaviour and performance. I tackle these questions using the online multiplayer videogame Dead by Daylight. Online multiplayer videogames generate realistic virtual worlds where interactions similar to "real-life" can occur. In these virtual worlds, we can manipulate environmental components experimentally to infer their effect on behaviour. A great advantage of using videogames is that they provide massive amounts of data. This gives us the opportunity to repeatedly monitor lots of individuals, and lots of behavioural variables across different environmental contexts. Understanding how ecological interactions and learning shape individual variation in behaviour and success is a major challenge. Thus, my project should bring insight on how these mechanisms operate in predator-prey systems.

Mots-clés

Predator-prey interactions, Foraging mode, Hunting experience, Individual specialization, Online videogames

Publications

1- Studying predator foraging mode and hunting success at the individual level with an online videogame
Fraser Franco, Maxime, Francesca Santostefano, Clint D Kelly, Pierre-Olivier Montiglio,
2022 Behavioral Ecology

2- Harnessing open science practices to teach ecology and evolutionary biology using interactive tutorials
Griffith, Jory E., Elizabeth Houghton, Margaret A. Slein, Maxime Fraser Franco, Jhoan Chávez, Amy B. Forsythe, Victoria M. Glynn, Egor Katkov, Kirsten M. Palmier, Zihaohan Sang, Rolando Trejo‐Pérez, Bryn Wiley, Jennifer M. Sunday, Joey R. Bernhardt
2024 Ecology and Evolution

3- Social interactions generate complex selection patterns in virtual worlds
Santostefano, Francesca, Maxime Fraser Franco, Pierre-Olivier Montiglio
2024 Journal of Evolutionary Biology