McGill University
Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Simon Reader
Start: 2012-09-01
End: 2021-04-15
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Project

Causes and Consequences of Intraspecific Variation in Cognition
I am broadly interested in behavioral ecology, centered around animal innovation and learning. My dissertation research will focus on understanding how variation in individual learning and innovation is shaped by ecology and its subsequent costs and benefits. I will examine evolutionary selection pressures, functional benefits, and how these behaviors relate to other important traits. I will investigate these questions through lab and field experiments with the help of various taxa, including the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) and Eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus).

Keywords

animal behavior, learning, cognitive ecology, Behavioral Innovation

Publications

1- High-Speed Vessel Noises in West Hong Kong Waters and Their Contributions Relative to Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins (Sousa chinensis)
Sims, Paul Q., Samuel K. Hung, Bernd Würsig
2012 Journal of Marine Biology

2- Sounds of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis) in West Hong Kong: A preliminary description
Sims, Paul Q., Robin Vaughn, Samuel K. Hung, Bernd Würsig
2012 The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

3- An investigation of population variation in maze exploration and its predictors in wild Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata)
Sims, Paul Q., Simon M. Reader
2021 Behavioural Processes