David J. White

My students and I have been working to build a new model of social development and social evolution focusing on how the social environment can organize and control neurobiology, cognition, learning, and reproductive output. We have taken an ecological approach, integrating across levels of analysis to examine how groups affect individuals and in turn how individuals influence groups.

My field station houses large flocks of social songbirds and provides many research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students interested in the neurobiology and behaviour of social animals.

• White, D. J. King, A. P. & West, M. J. “The Individual in Context: A Social Network Approach to the Study of Behavior”. In: Animal Behavior: How and Why Animals Do the Things They Do. Praeger. (2014).
• Maguire, S. Schmidt, M. F. & White, D. J. “Social brains in context: Lesions to the neural song control system of female cowbirds affects their social network.” PLOS One. (2013).
• White, D. J., Gersick, A. S, & Snyder-Mackler, N.  “Social networks and the development of social skills in cowbirds”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (2012).
• Gersick, A. S, Snyder-Mackler, N, & White, D. J. “Ontogeny of social skills II: Increased social complexity improves mating and competitive strategies in adult male cowbirds”. Animal Behaviour (2012)..
• White, D. J. “The form and function of social skills: Insights from a parasite”. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 19, 314-318 (2010).
• White, D. J., Ho, L. & Freed-Brown, S. G. “Counting chicks before they hatch: female cowbirds assess temporal quality of nests for parasitism”. Psychological Science. 2009.

• Laurier researchers receive provincial Early Researcher Award funding
• Songbirds in high tech smart avaries provide clues to social development, Laurier research suggests