My name is Dr. Ahva ("Ahvi") Potticary and I recently started a postdoctoral research position at the University of Georgia. Broadly, I am interested in how new complex behaviors evolve. More specifically, how we can reconcile the apparent flexibility of some behaviors with the stability of others (e.g., personality)? What processes allow for new behaviors to appear on ecological timescales? What physiological properties underlying behavior delineate the opportunities for new associations between behaviors to be made? I currently investigate these questions in collaboration with the Dr. Allen Moore lab.
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NEWS
Our paper "A neuroendocrine perspective on the origin and evolution of cooperative breeding" is out in Ornithology!
We published some papers! Drs. Alex Badyaev, Erin Morrison, and I recently published in Nature Communications (well, back in 2020). Also, I published my third chapter at The American Naturalist, with my graduate advisor Dr. Renee Duckworth.
I recently defended my dissertation at the University of Arizona! It has been great to work with my committee members, Drs. Renee Duckworth, Alex Badyaev, Tony Williams and Rick Michod.
Thank you to AOS for inviting me to write a review! The title is in flux but "Origin of cooperative breeding in birds: a widespread example of genetic accommodation?" will hopefully be done soon!
I recently received an award, thank you very much to Ruth Hoshaw, the Robert Hoshaw Memorial fund, and the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at the University of Arizona.
I recently gave a talk at the American Ornithological Society Conference in Tucson, Arizona, called "Common pathways to specific outcomes: stress links maternal environment with offspring phenotype."
In collaboration with Renee Duckworth, I just published my first chapter in Evolutionary Ecology, about what happens when there is a mismatch between the environments that mothers experience and those that their offspring live in in subsequent years in western bluebirds. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-018-9933-8
Congratulations to my lab mate, Kathryn Chenard, science illustrator extraordinaire, whose design was the logo of the recent AOS conference in Tucson, Arizona.
Drs. Renee Duckworth, Alex Badyaev and I recently published a paper in the Advances for Study of Behavior on the role of brain structure and development in delineating pathways for novel behavioral associations to form. doi.org/10.1016/bs.asb.2017.10.001
