Ryan Earley

Phone: 348-1827

email: rlearley(at)bama.ua.edu

Dr. Earley's personal web page

3 September, 2009  

Research interests

My laboratory uses primarily freshwater, brackish, and marine fish species, and some reptile species (varanids, anoles) as model systems to understand complex social behavior. We target multiple, interdependent factors that could contribute to the immense behavioral variation that exists among individuals within a population. These include the physical and social environments, hormone biosynthesis pathways, activation of neural circuits, and gene expression patterns.

Conceptual, theoretical, and technological advances in fields as diverse as ecology, evolutionary biology, neuroendocrinology, physiology, and animal behavior drive the research conducted in my laboratory. We aim to address fundamental questions in behavioral biology with a fusion of field research, behavioral experimentation, pharmacological manipulations, and neuroendocrine assays. The topics of greatest interest to our laboratory are aggression, dominance, sexual plasticity, reproductive allocation, and social eavesdropping. Behavioral variation among individuals of a population, regardless of how it is expressed, is embedded in an environmental context. We therefore prioritize exposing our animals to situations that they might readily encounter under natural circumstances. Our long-term goal is to compile a powerful, integrative set of data that helps us to understand how extraordinary levels of behavioral variation (or plasticity in general) emerge in animal populations.

Selected publications

Earley RL & Hsu Y. (2008). Reciprocity between endocrine state and contest behavior in the killifish, Kryptolebias marmoratus. Hormones & Behavior 53: 442-451.

Bonnie KE & Earley RL (2007). Expanding the scope of social information use. Animal Behaviour 74: 171-181.

Rodgers EW, Earley RL & Grober MS (2007). Social status determines the expression of sexual phenotype in the bi-directional sex changing bluebanded goby (Lythrypnus dalli). Journal of Fish Biology 70: 1660-1668.

Earley RL, Edwards JT, Aseem O, Felton K, Blumer LS, Karom M & Grober MS (2006). Social interactions tune aggression and stress responsiveness in a territorial cichlid fish (Archocentrus nigrofasciatus). Physiology & Behavior, 88: 353-363.

Lorenzi V, Earley RL & Grober MS. (2006). Preventing behavioral interactions with a male facilitates protogynous sex change in female bluebanded gobies (Lythrypnus dalli). Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology, 59: 715-722.

Hsu YY, Earley RL & Wolf LL. (2006). Modulation of aggressive behavior by fighting experience: mechanisms and contest outcomes. Biological Reviews, 81: 33-74.

Earley RL, Druen M & Dugatkin LA (2005) Watching fights does not alter a bystander’s response toward naïve conspecifics in male green swordtail fish (Xiphophorus helleri). Animal Behaviour 69: 1139-1145.

Earley RL, Blumer L & Grober MS (2004) The gall of subordination: changes in gallbladder function associated with social stress. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 271: 7-13.

Earley RL & Dugatkin LA (2002). Eavesdropping on visual cues in swordtail (Xiphophorus helleri) fights – a case for networking. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 269: 943 952.