I'm a post-doctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, the University of Konstanz, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. 


I study the evolution of social & physiological solutions in response to ecological unpredictability. My goal is to understand how individual physiology and ecology shape social information use, group behavioral responses, and ultimately the evolution of stable social groups in wild long-lived vertebrates.

Research, &tc

Cooperation & exploitation in unpredictable environments

My work with bats & primates explores how individuals learn from each other, how they filter social information, and how this happens in an ecological context. Learning in a social context is an important aspect of growing up, finding food, and navigating social relationships. 

Physiological strategies & energetic
limitations

Bats show a wide diversity of social organizations, but the most stable and cooperative groups rely on food resources that are hard to predict in space and time. I study how social information use and cooperation evolve under extremely energetic limited lifestyles. I'm particularly interested if these social groups are a place for individuals to level social information to find food, as well as what comprises must be made to stabilize these social groups.

Sex,
behavior, & biology

An individual's biological sex is one of the most important determinants of its life. It shapes who their social partners are, what their role in a social group can be, what & when they eat, where they live, and how they grow. I'm interested in when and why males and females differ in development and how this is related to ecological and social strategies.

Sociality &
life history
 

Living in social groups changes how animals grow up, with particularly long juvenile periods in primates (and human childhood & adolescence). I'm interested in how and why long juvenile periods occur, how juvenile ecological strategies and physiological responses cope, and how this impacts social groups.

Publications

Ramakers J, Dechmann DKN, Page RA, O'Mara MT. 2016. Frugivorous bats prefer information from novel social partners. Animal Behaviour 116:83-87. [PDF]

Gager Y, Gimenez O, O'Mara MT, Dechmann DKN. 2016. Group size, survival and surprisingly short lifespan in socially foraging bats. BMC Ecology 16:2 [PDF]

Stockmaier S, Dechmann DKN, Page RA, O'Mara MT. 2015. No fever and leucocytosis in response to a lipopolysaccharide challenge in an insectivorous bat. Biology Letters 11: 20150576 [PDF]

Fugère V, O'Mara MT, Page RA. 2015. Perceptual bias does not explain preference for prey call adornment in the frog-eating bat. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 69: 1353-1364. [PDF]

O'Mara MT. 2015. Ecological risk aversion and juvenile ring-tailed lemur feeding and foraging. Folia Primatologica 86: 96-105. [PDF]

Sauther ML, Gould L, Cuozzo FP, O'Mara MT. 2015. Ring-tailed lemurs: a species re-imagined. Folia Primatologica 86: 5-13. [PDF]

Dechmann DKN, Wikelski M, Varga K, Yohannes E, Fiedler W, Safi K, Burkhard W-D, O'Mara MT. 2014. Tracking post-hibernation behavior and early migration does not reveal the expected sex-differences in a "female-migrating" bat. PLOS ONE 9(12): e114810. [PDF]

O'Mara MT, Dechmann DKN, Page RA. 2014. Frugivorous bats evaluate the quality of social information when choosing novel foods. Behavioral Ecology 25(5): 1233-1239. [PDF]

O'Mara MT & Hickey CM. 2014. The development of sex difference in ring-tailed lemur feeding ecology. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 68(8): 1273-1286. [PDF]

O'Mara MT, Wikelski M, Dechmann DKN. 2014. 50 years of bat tracking: device attachment and future directions. Methods in Ecology & Evolution 5(4): 311-319. [PDF]

Cuozzo FP, Head BR, Sauther ML, Ungar PS, O'Mara MT. 2014. Sources of tooth wear variation early in life among known-aged wild ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) at the Bezà Mahafaly Special Reserve, Madagascar. American Journal of Primatology 76(11): 1037-1048. [PDF] *Featured article

O'Mara MT & Hickey CM. 2012. Social influences on the development of ringtailed lemur feeding ecology. Animal Behaviour 84(6): 1547-1555.[PDF]

O'Mara MT, Gordon AD, Catlett KK, Terranova CJ, Schwartz GT. 2012. Growth and the development of sexual size dimorphism in lorises and galagos. American Journal of  Physical Anthropology. 147(1): 11-20. [PDF]

O'Mara MT. 2012. Development of feeding in ring-tailed lemurs. PhD dissertation. [PDF]

Teague O'Mara
Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
Am Obstberg 1 
78315 Radolfzell
Germany
tomara<at>orn.mpg.de

Curriculum Vitae
Teague O'Mara