Lauren Costa

Graduate Student, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Princeton University

Research Interests: I am interested in the hormonal mechanisms that mediate aggression in female birds with year-round territorial behavior. There are physiological costs associated with aggression, such as those caused by high concentrations of hormones for sustained periods of time. It is important to understand how females balance those costs successfully in order to survive. Managing the trade-off between aggressive behavior and potentially costly hormones is particularly important for females that display the same year-round aggressive behavior shown by their male counterparts, because they carry the extra burden of physically producing and brooding young.

Aggression seems counterintuitive, given that females are often the ones who must behaviorally invest in raising offspring. Thus, there is also a behavioral trade-off between time devoted to aggressive behavior and time devoted to other activities, such as foraging or parental care. How do females prioritize these responsibilities? Further, if aggressive behavior increases chances of mortality, either directly through physical combat or through subordination to a lower quality territory, then fecundity will also be affected in this way. I plan to examine the hormonal mechanisms of female aggression through the quantitative and qualitative examination of aggressive behavior during the breeding and non-breeding seasons.

Mailing Address:
EEB Dept.
113D Eno Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544

E-mail: lcosta@princeton.edu
Phone: 609-258-2119

Education:
B.A. Psychology with Honors, Brown University "Behavioral evidence for rheotaxis in Xenopus laevis tadpoles” Advisor: Dr. Andrea Simmons

Publications:

Simmons, A.M., Costa, L.M. and Gerstein, H.B. (2004) Lateral line-mediated rheotactic behavior in tadpoles of the African clawed from (Xenopus laevis). J Comp Physiol A, 190, 747-758.