We study the social lives of wild animals: how ties between individuals form, how they shape health and survival, and what travels along them, from songs to gut bacteria. Most of our fieldwork is with the rock hyraxes of Ein Gedi, a population followed for more than 25 years.
Animals do not pick their companions at random. We look for the simple rules that build a network, such as young animals inheriting their mother's ties, and measure what a position in the network means for survival and reproduction.
Close contact moves microbes. With shotgun metagenomics we follow how gut bacteria, down to the strain, pass within and between hyrax groups, and how diet and the landscape between groups shape that flow.
Male rock hyraxes sing long, structured songs. We study how signals are built, how they evolved, and how communication fits the social structure around it. Males that keep a steady rhythm, for example, father more young.
Social life happens under threat. We test how predation risk and food change who spends time with whom, and we are starting to follow wolves and other predators around Ein Gedi.
Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, is home to the hyrax population at the heart of our work. It has been followed for more than 25 years, more than 600 animals so far at two study sites.
We take students and postdocs at every level, for fieldwork, computational or theoretical projects on animal sociality. You are welcome to bring your own study system.
Write to Amiyaal with a few lines about what you would like to work on: amiyaal@tauex.tau.ac.il
How to join the lab