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Phone: (612) 625-5700
Fax: (612) 624-6777
Email: wiggins@umn.edu

University of Minnesota
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
100 Ecology Building
1987 Upper Buford Circle
St. Paul, MN 55108

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David W. Stephens

Professor, Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior

Ph.D., The Queen's College, Oxford University, 1982

Contact Information

Phone: 612-625-5722
Fax: 612-624-6777
E-mail: steph031@umn.edu

Graduate Faculty Memberships

Ecology, Evolution and Behavior

Research Interests

Experimental behavioral ecology, foraging behavior; animal decision-making; evolutionary approaches to animal cognition; learning and memory as adaptations

Statement

My research blends mathematical and experimental analyses to address a range of issues in behavioral ecology, especially feeding behavior. My experiments use psychological techniques, and this brings the conceptual approach of behavioral ecology into contact with the more mechanistic approach of psychology. Current interests in my laboratory are 1) combining evolutionary and mechanistic analyses of behavior using animal impulsivity as a worked example; 2) evolutionary models of "cognitive" phenomena, e.g. learning, memory and decision-making; 3) Experimental games, including experimental analysis of putatively cooperative games such as the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma and related ideas.

Selected Publications

Stephens, D.W. and J.R. Krebs. 1986. Foraging Theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. xiv+247 pages.

Stephens, D.W., J.P. Anderson, and K. Benson. 1997. On the spurious occurrence of tit-for-tat in pairs of predatory approaching fish. Animal Behaviour 53:113-131.

Anderson, J.P., D.W. Stephens, and S.R. Dunbar. 1997. Saltatory search: a theoretical analysis. Behavioral Ecology 8:307-317.

Stephens, D.W., 2000. Cumulative benefit games: achieving cooperation when players discount the future. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 205:1-16.

Stephens, D.W. and D. Anderson in press. The adaptive value of preference for immediacy: when short-sighted rules have far-sighted consequences. Behavioral Ecology.

Stephens, D.W. and J.R. Stevens in press. A simple spatially explicit ideal-free distribution: a model and an experiment. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

Additional Links

Stephens Lab
Biological Basis of Behavior Group Page