Professor

170 Pearson Hall Hall  (513) 529-5454
solomong@miamioh.edu

Biographical Information

Studies of animal behavior provide insight into the way animals respond to their environment. I am a behavioral ecologist interested in an integrative approach to the study of animal behavior. My long-term research interests, which have been supported by NSF and NIH, have focused on factors influencing behavior and reproduction in small mammals. More specifically, my students and I have been studying mating patterns, cooperative breeding and sociality. We investigate the effects of these behaviors on an animal’s reproductive success as well as some of the mechanisms that may be involved in these behaviors using a combination of field and laboratory studies. My students and I have used prairie voles in most of our studies, conducting investigations in the lab, semi-natural populations at Miami University’s Ecology Research Center as well as in natural populations.

Courses Taught

Concepts in Biology BIO 115
Environmental Biology BIO 121
Animal Behavior BIO 465/565

Selected Publications

Solomon, N. G. & Keane, B. Resubmitted with revisions. Dispatches from the field: Factors affecting female reproductive success in natural populations of prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster). Animal Behaviour.

Keane, B., Castelli, F. R.**, Davis, H.* & Solomon, N. G. 2017. Effects of avpr1a length polymorphism on male social behavior and reproduction in semi-natural populations of prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster). Ethology 123, 675-688. DOI: 10.1111/eth.12641

Solomon, N. G. & Keane, B. 2016. Rodent sociality: a comparison between caviomorphs and other rodent model systems. (Ed. By Ebensperger, L. & Hayes, L. D.). pp. 201-227. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, N.Y.

Taborsky, M., Hofmann, H. A., Beery, A. K., Blumstein, D. T., Hayes, L. D., Lacey, E. A., Martins, E. P., Phelps, S. M., Solomon, N. G., & Rubenstein, D. R. 2015. Taxon matters: promoting integrative studies of social behavior. Trends in Neurosciences 38: 189-191.

Hofmann, H. A., Beery, A. K., Blumstein, D. T., Couzin, I. D., Early, R. L., Hayes, L. D., Hurd, P. L., Lacey, E. A., Solomon, N. G., Taborsky, M., Young, L. J., & Rubenstein, D. R. 2014. An evolutionary framework for studying mechanisms of social behavior. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 29: 581-589.

Streatfeild, C. A.***, Mabry, K. E.***, Keane, B., Crist, T. O. & Solomon, N. G. 2011. Intraspecific variability in the social and genetic mating systems in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster). Animal Behaviour 82, 1387-1398.

*= undergraduate student **= graduate student ***= post-doctoral researcher