Optimal Foraging

Claire Hemmingway, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, is our guest today. Her research is on decision-making in animal cognition, focusing on neotropical bats and bumblebees. Claire discussed how bumblebees make foraging decisions and how they communicate when foraging.

Guest

Claire Hemmingway: I am an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee in the Departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Psychology & Neuroscience. I am also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). My lab broadly explores the mechanisms, outcomes, and evolutionary consequences of animal decision making. To address these questions, we study foraging behaviors in both bats and bees. Specifically, we ask how animals evaluate and make decisions between foraging options based on the signal and reward properties of each option. We also ask whether species differ in decision-making mechanisms based on their foraging strategy or other aspects of their ecology. Finally, we are interested in how certain decision mechanisms may shape the target of those decisions, such as floral signals and rewards.