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<p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Hi, I am Amiyaal Ilany. </span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:12pt">Here is a description of my work (feel free to cut it if it's too long):</span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">I am a behavioral ecologist interested in broad aspects of
social behavior. I incorporate theories and approaches from several disciplines,
including mathematics, statistics, and sociology, and use empirical and
theoretical methods to better understand behavioral phenomena. Much of my
research focuses on the study of social networks and on principles of animal
communication. </span></p>
<p class="" style="text-align:justify"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">The causes and
consequences of social networks</span></i></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:12pt;text-indent:36pt">Social network analysis is a powerful
framework that provides metrics to quantify social structure at different
levels of organization. I have adopted this approach to utilize the extensive
dataset of social interactions in a wild rock hyrax population monitored for the
last 15 years by Dr. Eli Geffen’s group (Tel Aviv University). I integrate
concepts and analytical tools coming from the fields of biology, sociology and
network science that aid in understanding the causes and consequences of social
relationships. One such example is the theory of structural balance, suggesting
that humans tend to close triads in their social networks (following ‘the
friend of my friend is my friend’ rule), resulting in clustered networks, in
which individuals form cohesive social groups. I was the first to apply this
theory to a non-human animal, and found that its predictions were fulfilled in
the rock hyrax population I study, suggesting that clustering has a role in the
evolution of social structures. The stability of hyrax networks was found
to depend on the interplay between the stabilizing forces of clustering, and the
instability introduced mainly by incoming individuals, i.e. new individuals
that have not yet found their social niche and embedded into the social
network.</span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:12pt;text-indent:36pt">An important aspect of social networks
that is poorly understood both theoretically and empirically is their temporal
dynamics. The
current static approach being used by most studies, that ignores temporal
dynamics, is unable to disentangle the different factors influencing social
structure. A focus of my postdoctoral research has been developing and testing
new theory that uses simple rules of cooperation to elucidate social network
dynamics. I developed a general agent-based model that demonstrates how social
stability is achieved when cooperation is practiced in cohesive clusters of
individuals. I found the tendency to form clusters to explain the formation
of stable social groups and also the mechanism behind fission-fusion societies,
with no need for more complex mechanisms such as kin selection, reciprocity and
policing, and in the face of cheating. Nevertheless, my model predicts
individuals to form groups with their kin, and with individuals that share
similar traits.</span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:12pt;text-indent:36pt">With Dr. Kay Holekamp (Michigan State
University), I am studying the causes and consequences of social network
dynamics in a wild population of individually identified spotted hyenas in
Kenya. I use data collected over 25 years to identify the factors influencing
long term network dynamics. I employed stochastic agent-based models, borrowed
from statistical sociology, that allow me to estimate the contribution of
multiple factors to long-term network changes. I classify these factors into four
groups: 1) external environmental conditions, such as rainfall and prey
abundance; 2) a tendency to associate according to individual traits, such as
sex and social rank; 3) dyadic factors, such as genetic relatedness; and 4) structural
network effects, such as triadic closure. My analysis of social network
dynamics found that
multiple factors determine network dynamics, with the tendency towards
clustering being the most consistent factor, as predicted by my theoretical
model. My results imply that cooperation is a result of a complex set of
causes, and emphasize the significance of structural properties of the network
in affecting individuals’ social choices. </span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:12pt;text-indent:36pt">Identifying the factors determining
social structure is the first step in understanding the effect of sociality on life
history and fitness, in terms of longevity, mating and reproductive success. In
the rock hyrax, I have found that individuals survived longer if they were
members of socially-homogenous groups, in which social associations were more
evenly spread. No direct correlation was found between individuals’
centrality within their social networks and longevity, suggesting that stress
in groups suffering higher social inequality may negatively affect longevity in
all individuals belonging to these groups. Investigating another role of social
structure, I employed a novel network approach to analyze the mating patterns
of the promiscuous rock hyrax. Surprisingly, I have found that males that had
high-ranked rivals were more likely to mate a female in any specific mating
interaction. Thus, my network approach revealed subtle patterns of sexual
selection that were masked when using a traditional population level regression
approach.</span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:12pt;text-indent:36pt">Links to relevant papers:</span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="text-indent:36pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:16px"><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022375">http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022375</a></span></font><br></span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="text-indent:36pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:16px"><a href="http://www.tau.ac.il/lifesci/departments/zoology/members/geffen/documents/aoi93.pdf">http://www.tau.ac.il/lifesci/departments/zoology/members/geffen/documents/aoi93.pdf</a></span><br></font></span></p><p class="" style="text-align:justify"><span style="text-indent:36pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:16px"><a href="http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140326/srep04472/full/srep04472.html?WT.ec_id=SREP-631-20140401">http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140326/srep04472/full/srep04472.html?WT.ec_id=SREP-631-20140401</a></span><br></font></span></p>
<div><br></div><div>All the best,</div><div>Amiyaal Ilany</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Dr. Amiyaal Ilany<div>Postdoctoral Fellow<br><div>Department of Biology</div></div><div>University of Pennsylvania</div></div></div></div></div>
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