Paul O’Brien

My interests include population biology and behavioural ecology and the processes they involve. Specifically, I am fascinated with the influence animal behaviours can have on population level processes and vice versa. My project examines the effects of changing conspecific density on the social behaviour of elk. By employing the use of social network analysis and a number of network metrics, I quantified consistent individual differences in social connectivity. My research has applications to wildlife management, particularly with respect to disease transmission, hunting, and climate change.