animal societies

ANDY YOUNG’S RESEARCH GROUP

SOCIAL EVOLUTION | LIFE-HISTORIES | AGEING

WELCOME!

I am an Evolutionary Biologist at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation in Cornwall, and my team study Social Evolution and Senescence (Ageing).

We do so principally using long-term field studies of wild social vertebrates, including cooperative weaver birds in the Kalahari desert and European badgers in the UK. We also collaborate with microbiologists to study the evolutionary origins of ageing in unicellular organisms using timelapse microfluidics. Our research is highly integrative, combining life-history and behavioural data with physiological and genomic tools to address both evolutionary and mechanistic questions, given the potential for each to inform the other.

Find out more about our Research, Team & Findings using the tabs above. Enjoy!

If you’re keen to join the team or collaborate just drop me an email

Architectural traditions in the structures built by cooperative weaver birds
Tello-Ramos M, Harper L, Tortora-Brayda I, Guillette LM, Capilla-Lasheras P, Harrison XA, Young AJ, Healey SD (2024)
Science

Evolution of sex differences in cooperation can be explained by trade-offs with dispersal
Capilla-Lasheras P, Bircher N, Brown AM, Harrison X, Reed T, York JE, Cram DL, Rutz C, Walker L, Naguib M, Young AJ (2024)
PLOS Biology

Mothers in a cooperatively breeding bird increase their pre-natal investment per offspring when they will have more help with post-natal care
Capilla-Lasheras P, Wilson AJ, Young AJ (2023)
PLOS Biology

Altruistic bet-hedging and the evolution of cooperation in a Kalahari bird
Capilla-Lasheras P, Wood EM, Harrison X, Wilson AJ, Young AJ (2021)
Science Advances + Nice coverage in PNAS here…

Genetic integration of behavioural and endocrine components of the stress response
Houslay TM, Earley RL, White SJ, Lammers W, Grimmer AJ, Travers LM, Johnson EL, Young AJ, Wilson AJ (2022) eLife

Longitudinal evidence that older parents produce offspring with longer telomeres in a wild social bird
Brown AM, Wood AM, Capilla-Lasheras P, Harrison XA, Young AJ (2022)
Biology Letters

Dispersal and the evolution of sex differences in cooperation in cooperatively breeding birds and mammals
Fenner P, Currie T, Young AJ (BioRxiv)

WHITE-BROWED SPARROW WEAVERS

LIFE-LONG SOCIAL PHENOTYPING | GENETIC PEDIGREE | MOLECULAR TOOLS

This cooperatively breeding bird is our primary model system. We have been continuously monitoring the life-histories of all birds from egg through to senescence in >40 social groups in the Kalahari desert since 2007. We now have >decade of life-history data covering >1700 individuals monitored throughout their lives to date, as well as egg, nestling and cooperative provisioning data from >900 breeding attempts.

Find out more about The Sparrow Weaver Project

EUROPEAN BADGERS

The UK Animal Plant and Health Agency (APHA) have been monitoring the lives of all individuals in 30 social groups of European badgers for the past 50 years, with a particular focus on their role in bovine tuberculosis dynamics. This work has yielded an incredible longitudinal data set of life-history, morphology, molecular and disease status information on >5000 individuals.

We use this phenomenal model to study the evolution and mechanisms of ageing, and their interactions with sociality and disease, in close collaboration with APHA.