Research Interests |
I’m interested in how individuals respond behaviourally to environmental change and how these behavioral responses shape species interactions. My PhD explores these ideas in the context of a northern boreal food web where individuals experience drastic daily, seasonal, and annual changes in their local environment. By quantifying how three interacting mammals (red squirrel, snowshoe hare, and Canada lynx) adjust behaviourally to this dynamic northern environment, I hope to begin to untangle how behaviour impacts inter-species interaction strength and food web structure. A large part of my project involves the development of biologging approaches that record detailed behaviour over temporal scales relevant to food web ecology. |
Previous Work |
For my masters, I worked on the Kluane Red Squirrel Project to look at two key maternal behaviours: nest attendance patterns and nest choices. In this system, squirrels breed as early as February and as late as September. This means that squirrels breeding earlier have to raise their pups at air temperatures below -20C, while later breeding squirrels deal with air temperatures above +20C, which represents a difference of around 40C. This variation in air temperature potentially drives differences in maternal behaviours through either cold stress earlier in the season or heat stress later in the season. I hypothesize that female red squirrels must adjust the amount of time they spend with their pups and the nest type they use according to air temperatures to ensure their litter stays warm early in the season without overheating themselves later in the season. |
Publications |
Studd E.K., Boudreau M.R., Majchrzak Y.N., Menzies A.K., Peers M.J.L., Seguin J., Murray D.L., Boutin S., and M.M. Humphries. (2019). Use of Acceleration and Acoustics to Classify Behavior, Generate Time Budgets, and Evaluate Responses to Moonlight in Free-Ranging Snowshoe Hares. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution,7(154). Studd E.K., Landry-Cuerrier, M., Menzies, A.K., McAdam, A.G., Lane, J.E., Boutin S., and M.M. Humphries. (2019) Behavioral classification of low frequency acceleration and temperature data from a free ranging small mammal. Ecology and Evolution, 9: 619-630. Humphries, M.M., Studd, E.K., Menzies, A.K., and S. Boutin. (2017). To everything there is a season: summer-to-winter food webs and the functional traits of keystone species. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 57(5): 961-976. Studd, E.K., Boutin, S., McAdam, A. G., and Humphries, M. M. (2016) Nest attendance of lactating red squirrels: influences of biological and environmental correlates. Journal of Mammalogy, 97(3): 806-814. Studd, E.K., Boutin, S., McAdam, A.G., Krebs, C.J., and Humphries, M.M. (2015) Predators, energetics and fitness drive neonatal reproductive failure in red squirrels. Journal of Animal Ecology, 84: 249--259. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12279 |