Uri Grodzinski, PhD

Research Interests
My research lies at the interaction of evolution, behaviour and ecology, focusing on how animals cope with their social worlds through competiton, cooperation and communication. To study how behaviour evolved we must study the mechanisms that generate behavior and the details of how behaviours lead to Darwinian fitness, but bringing theoretical understanding of evolutionary processes to bear is often easier said than meaningfully implemented. After (hopefully) successfully doing so in the study of parent-offspring communication in the house sparrow during my PhD, I am now trying to do the same in the study of the cognitive mechanisms that govern animal behaviour, focusing on social cognition of Western scrub-jays.

Publications
Thornton, A., Clayton, N.S. and Grodzinski, U. (In press) Animal minds: from computation to evolution. Phil Trans R. Soc. B

Grodzinski, U., Watanabe, A. and Clayton, N.S. (2012) Peep to pilfer: what scrub-jays like to watch when observing others. Anim. Behav. 83, 1253-1260. PDF

Grodzinski, U. and Johnstone, R.A. (2012) Parents and offspring in an evolutionary game: the effect of supply on demand when costs of care vary.Proc. R. Soc. B 279, 109-115. PDF

Grodzinski, U., Dor, R. and Lotem, A. (2011) Begging for a better future: how far can behavioral ecologists go without specifying mechanisms? Behav. Ecol. 22, 921-922. PDF

Grodzinski, U. and Clayton, N.S. (2010) Problems faced by food-cashing corvids and the evolution of cognitive solutions. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 365, 977-987. PDF

Grodzinski, U. and Clayton, N.S. (2010) What can studies of comparative cognition teach us about the evolution of dynamic coordination. In "Dynamic Coordination in the Brain: From Neurons to Mind, Edited by C. von der Malsburg, W.A. Phillips, and W. Singer, Strungmann Forum Report, vol. 5. pp 43-57. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. PDF

Balaban, E., Edelman, S., Grillner, S., Grodzinski, U., Jarvis, E.D., Kaas, J.H., Laurent, G. and Pipa G. (2010) Evolution of dynamic coordination. In "Dynamic Coordination in the Brain: From Neurons to Mind, Edited by C. von der Malsburg, W.A. Phillips, and W. Singer, Strungmann Forum Report, vol. 5. pp 59-82. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. PDF

Grodzinski, U., Hauber, M.E. and Lotem, A. (2009) The role of feeding regularity and nestling digestive efficiency in parent-offspring communication: an experimental test. Funct. Ecol. 23, 569-577. PDF

Grodzinski, U., Spiegel, O., Korine, C. and Holderied, M.W. (2009). Context-dependent flight speed: evidence for energetically optimal flight speed in the bat Pipistrellus Kuhlii? J. Anim. Ecol. 78, 540-548. PDF

Grodzinski, U., Erev, I. and Lotem, A. (2008) Can hungry nestlings be trained to reduce their begging? Behav. Ecol. 19, 116-125. PDF

Grodzinzki, U., and Lotem, A. (2007) The adaptive value of parental responsiveness to nestling begging. Proc. R. Soc. B 274, 2499-2456. PDF

PhD Thesis:
Grodzinski, U. (2009) Adaptive and process-based explanations in the study of parent-offspring communication: experiments with hand-raised house sparrow nestlings and game theoretical modelling. Tel-Aviv University. PhD Thesis