Simon Reader, Department of Biology, Utrecht University

<body> <b><font size=+2>Simon Reader (Frame-free website)</font></b> <p><b><font size=+1>Contact details</font></b> <p>Utrecht University <br> Behavioural Biology <br> Padualaan 14 <br> PO Box 80086 <br> 3508 TB Utrecht <br> The Netherlands <p>Phone: +31 (0)30 2535406 (office), 2535401 (dept.), 2521105 (fax). <p><b><font size=+1>Research Interests</font></b> <p>I study the active role of behaviour in evolution, specifically the evolution and adaptive consequences of social learning in animals. In particular, I've been looking at: <br>   <blockquote>(i) the causes of individual, population and species-level variation in innovation and social learning propensities <p>(ii) the dynamics of the diffusion of acquired information <p>(iii) the relationship between asocial and social learning <p>(iv) the role of innovation and social learning in brain evolution.</blockquote> <p><br> My PhD was supervised by <a href="http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/laland/seal/welcome.htm">Kevin Laland</a> at the Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/">University of Cambridge</a>, where I addressed these questions with laboratory and field experiments using populations of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) and comparative studies of innovation and cultural transmission in non-human primates. More recently, I took up a Bellairs fellowship at the McGill field institute in the West Indies. I studied six species of bird in Barbados which form an opportunistic avian "guild", in order to examine the population dynamics and reproductive payoffs of cultural transmission, and the relationship between innovation, asocial learning and social learning. As a Royal Society postdoctoral fellow at <a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/">McGill University</a>, working under <a href="http://ww2.mcgill.ca/Biology/faculty/lefebvre/">Louis Lefebvre</a>, I continued my work on behavioural flexibility in birds and brain evolution in mammals. In January 2003 I began an assistant professorship at <a href="http://www.uu.nl">Utrecht University</a>, in the department of <a href="../index.html">Behavioural Biology</a>. <p><b><font size=+1>Publications</font></b> <br> <br> <b><font size=+1>Books</font></b> <p> Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N., Eds. 2003. <a href="../index.html">Animal Innovation</a>. Oxford: <a href="../index.html">Oxford University Press</a>. <blockquote> Available from OUP: <a href="../index.html">UK & Europe</a>, <a href="http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Psychology/Cognitive/?view=usa&ci=0198526210">USA</a>, <a href="http://www.oup.com/ca/isbn/0-19-852621-0">Canada</a>; Amazon: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198526229/qid=1047044144/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_0_2/026-3767066-6416438">UK</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0198526229/ref=lpr_g_1/102-5387297-4156121?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">USA</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198526229/702-5983268-3580839">Canada</a>.</blockquote> <b><font size=+1>Papers and book chapters</font></b> <p> Laland, K. N. & Reader, S. M. 1999a. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1998.0967">Foraging innovation in the guppy</a>. <a href="http://www.academicpress.com/anbehav">Animal Behaviour</a>, 57, 331-340. <blockquote> See accompanying features in <a href="http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/398111B0.docframe">Nature</a> (1999, 398, 111) and <a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/6_5_99/bob2.htm">Science News</a> (1999, 155, 364-366).</blockquote> Laland, K. N. & Reader, S. M. 1999b. <a href="http://www3.oup.co.uk/jnls/list/beheco/hdb/Volume_10/Issue_03/100270.sgm.abs.html">Foraging innovation is inversely related to competitive ability in male but not in female guppies</a>. <a href="http://www3.oup.co.uk/beheco/">Behavioral Ecology</a>, 10, 270-274. <p> Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N. 1999. <a href="http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1999/vol3/reader_sm&laland_kn.html">Do animals have memes?</a> <a href="http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit">Journal of Memetics</a>, 3(2), 100-108. <p> Reader, S. M. 2000. Social Learning and Innovation: Individual Differences, Diffusion Dynamics and Evolutionary Issues. Unpublished PhD Thesis, <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/">University of Cambridge</a>. <p> Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N. 2000. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1450">Diffusion of foraging innovations in the guppy</a>. <a href="http://www.academicpress.com/anbehav">Animal Behaviour</a>, 60, 175-180. <blockquote> See accompanying feature in <a href="http://cgi.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/wildmag.shtml">BBC Wildlife</a> magazine (2001, 19(1), 22).</blockquote> Reader, S. M. 2001. <a href="http://journals.bmn.com/journals/list/latest?pii=S1364661300016879&node=TOC%40%40TICS%40005%4008%40005_08">The nature of the memetic beast</a>. Review of <i>Darwinizing culture: the status of memetics as a science </i>(edited by R. Aunger, Oxford University Press, 2000). <a href="http://www.trends.com">Trends in Cognitive Sciences</a>, 5, 365-366. <p> Reader, S. M. & Lefebvre, L. 2001. Social learning and sociality. <a href="http://www.bbsonline.org">Behavioral and Brain Sciences</a>, 24(2), 353-355. <p> Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N. 2001. <a href="http://www.wkap.nl/oasis.htm/298610">Primate innovation: sex, age and social rank differences</a>. <a href="http://www.wkap.nl/journalhome.htm/0164-0291">International Journal of Primatology</a>, 22, 787-805. <p> Lefebvre, L., Reader, S. M. & Webster, S. J. 2001. Novel food use by Gray Kingbirds and Red-necked Pigeons in Barbados. <a href="http://www.boc-online.org/bull.htm">Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club</a>, 121, 247-249. <p> Day, R., MacDonald, T., Brown, C., Laland, K. N. & Reader, S. M. 2001. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2001.1820">Interactions between shoal size and conformity in guppy social foraging</a>. <a href="http://www.academicpress.com/anbehav">Animal Behaviour</a>, 62, 917-925. <p> Reader, S. M., Nover, D. & Lefebvre, L. 2002. <a href="http://apt.allenpress.com/aptonline/?request=get-abstract&issn=0273-8570&volume=073&issue=01&page=0082">Locale-specific sugar packet opening by Lesser Antillean bullfinches in Barbados</a>. <a href="http://www.afonet.org/english/journal.html">Journal of Field Ornithology</a>, 73, 82-85. <p> Reader, S. M., Morand-Ferron, J., Côté, I. & Lefebvre, L. 2002. Unusual feeding behaviors in five species of Barbadian birds. El Pitirre, 15, 117-123. <p> Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N. 2002. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/7/4436">Social intelligence, innovation and enhanced brain size in primates</a>. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA</a>, 99, 4436-4441. <blockquote> See accompanying features in <a href="http://www.newscientist.com">New Scientist</a> (2002, March 16, p.11), <a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/20020316/fob7.asp">Science News</a> (2002, 161, p.166), <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fe20020314rh.htm">The Japan Times</a> (March 14, 2002), <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v44n2/032901/032901.html">Current Anthropology</a> (2003, 44, p. 151), and the commentary by Seyfarth & Cheney in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> (<a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/7/4141">What are big brains for?</a> PNAS, 99, p. 4141-4142).</blockquote> Reader, S. M. 2003. Relative brain size and the distribution of innovation and social learning across the nonhuman primates. In: <a href="http://books.cambridge.org/0521815975.htm">The Biology of Traditions: Models and Evidence</a> (Ed. by D. M. Fragaszy & S. Perry), pp. 56-93. Cambridge: <a href="http://uk.cambridge.org/">Cambridge University Press</a>. <p> Reader, S. M. & MacDonald, K. 2003. Environmental variability and primate behavioural flexibility. In: <a href="../index.html">Animal Innovation</a> (Ed. by S.M. Reader & K. N. Laland), pp. 83-116. Oxford: <a href="../index.html">Oxford University Press</a>. <p> Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N. 2003. Animal innovation: an introduction. In: <a href="../index.html">Animal Innovation</a> (Ed. by S. M. Reader & K. N. Laland), pp. 3-35. Oxford: <a href="../index.html">Oxford University Press</a>. <p> Reader, S. M., Kendal, J. R. & Laland, K. N. 2003. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2003.2252">Social learning of foraging sites and escape routes in wild Trinidadian guppies</a>. <a href="http://www.academicpress.com/anbehav">Animal Behaviour</a>, 66, 729-739. <p> Reader, S. M. 2003. <a href="http://gottardo.ingentaselect.com/vl=11561039/cl=99/nw=1/rpsv/cw/brill/15707555/v53n2/s6/p147">Innovation and social learning: Individual variation and brain evolution</a>. <a href="http://www.bio.uu.nl/~kndv/NJZ.html">Animal Biology</a>, 53, 147-158. <p> Lefebvre, L., Reader, S. M. & Sol, D. In press. Brains, innovations and evolution in birds and primates. <a href="http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=JournalHome&ProduktNr=223831">Brain, Behavior and Evolution</a>. <p> Reader, S. M. In press. Distinguishing social and asocial learning using diffusion dynamics. <a href="http://www.psychonomic.org/ALB/">Learning and Behavior</a>. <p> Morand-Ferron, J., Lefebvre, L., Reader, S. M., Sol, D. & Elvin, S. In press. Dunking behaviour in Carib grackles. <a href="http://www.academicpress.com/anbehav">Animal Behaviour</a>. <br>   <br>   <br> <center> <p><font size=-1>Last updated 14.02.04. Please use a frames-compatible browser for more regular updates</font>. <hr> <p><a href="http://ww2.mcgill.ca/Biology/biology1.htm">[McGill Biology Home Page]</a> <a href="http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/laland/seal/welcome.htm">[Cambridge Social Evolution & Learning Group]</a> <font color="#FFFFFF"><a href="http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/">[Cambridge Zoology Home Page]</a> <a href="../index.html">[Utrecht Behavioural Biology]</a></font> <p><font color="#FFFFFF"><a href="http://webct.bio.uu.nl">[Perception & Cognition Course Materials: WebCT]</a></font> </center> <p>  </body>