Kate Laskowski
Ph.D. Graduate Student
NSF GK-12 Fellow
klaskow3@life.illinois.edu

Research Interests:

I’m broadly interested in individual differences in behavior.  Growing evidence suggests that behavior may be more constrained than previously thought, which is especially interesting since many of these behavioral limitations appear to be maladaptive.  While, these individual differences in behavior have long been recognized by traditional ethologists, only recently has the importance of this variation been appreciated and studied in a quantitative way. 

Specifically, I want to study the evolution of personality.  In the field of animal behavior, personality is simply defined as “predictability of behavior;” essentially we find that some individuals are consistently more aggressive, or shy, or bold (etc etc) than others even when more plastic behavior may be favored.  Once considered a purely human trait, evidence of personality has now been found across a diversity of widespread taxa from pigs, to dogs, to fish and even spiders.  In this nascent field, fundamental questions such as the extent of natural variation in personality, stability of personality over the lifetime of the individual and the relative effects of environment and genetics on personality development remain to be answered.   

I work on natural populations of threespine sticklebacks found in Northern California.  Threespine sticklebacks are especially well-suited for these studies as they have undergone a recent radiation into freshwater habitats after the retreat of the last glaciers providing numerous naturally replicated populations.  Below, you can see me at my field site and “mobile lab.”  I have developed methods to quantify behavior in a field situation and recently, discovered extensive variation in personality that cannot be explained by sex, body size, location or time of day.  Essentially, what it causing these behavioral differences between fish remains to be seen.  Further observations and breeding experiments will hopefully shed light on the persistence and development of personality in this species.