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Michael Sheehan
Graduate student
B.A., Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
U-M affiliation
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Contact information
University of Michigan
1300 Kraus Natural Science Building
830 North University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1048
Email: mic@umich.edu |
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Fields of study
Behavioral ecology
Research interests
I am broadly interested in social behavior and animal communication. At Michigan, I plan to study the mechanisms of conflict management in paper wasps societies. Specifically, I am researching the evolution of visual individual recognition systems in the Northern paper wasp, Polistes fuscatus. These paper wasps use highly variable and distinctive facial and body markings to recognize colony members as individuals. Since their visual markings are readily manipulated they are an ideal system for studying individual recognition. Previous theoretical work suggests that individual recognition should lead to more stable, linear hierarchies, thus reducing aggression and providing a benefit to the group. Experimental work, however, has not been done to test the theoretical predictions. My current work is examining the benefits of being individually distinctive, the function of individual recognition in a paper wasp colony and cognitive specializations of recognition in paper wasps.
Advisor
Elizabeth Tibbetts
Websites
Sheehan's Web site
Tibbetts Lab
Select articles
Sheehan, MJ and E.A. Tibbetts. 2008. Robust long-term social memories in a paper wasp. Current Biology 18: R851-R852.
Schoenemann, P.T., L.D. Glotzer, and M.J. Sheehan. 2005. Reply to “Is prefrontal white matter a human evolutionary specialization?” Nature Neuroscience8: 538.
Schoenamann, P.T., M.J. Sheehan, and L.D. Glotzer. 2005. Prefrontal white matter volume is disproportionately larger in humans than in other primates. Nature Neuroscience 8: 242–52.
Schoenemann, P.T., B.B. Avants, J.C. Gee, D.L. Glotzer, and M.J. Sheehan. 2004. Analysis of chimp-human brain differences via non-rigid deformation of 3D MR images. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 123, Supplement 38:174-175.
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