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Dana Davis Undergraduate Student |
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Email: djd5038@psu.edu
Research Interests
My research project focuses on eastern fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus) feeding behavior. I am currently studying predator-prey interactions of individual lizards (with a single prey item), and will soon be looking at competitive interactions in a group setting (four lizards with one prey item). Prey items include mealworms and crickets. Observing individual lizards allows me to determine average handling and ingesting times for different sized prey items. Questions I hope to answer with the group interaction experiment include: 1) the importance of size - Will the larger lizard always get the prey? and 2) the urgency to handle food quickly in a competitive setting - Can the predator hold on to the prey long enough to ingest it when competition is present?
This research is funded by an undergraduate research grant through Penn State. I plan to present my findings at the Undergraduate Research Exhibition in April 2009. |
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Pennsylvania State University Biology Department |
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Langkilde laboratory |
