Graduate Student Profile : Greg Stricker (PhD)
I am generally interested in animal behavior, in particular, conspecific interactions. I am currently developing a project examining maternal behavior in spotted hyenas ( Crocuta crocuta ). Spotted hyenas are unique among mammals in that females are larger and more aggressive than males and are male-like in appearance and I am interested in examining what forms parental investment may take in these masculinized mothers. It is thought that spotted hyenas invest more heavily in their offspring than other carnivores, though it is not clear what forms this investment in Crocuta might take. I am currently examining what forms this investment may take and how the amount of maternal investment changes as the cub ages. In the spotted hyena, nongenetic effects of maternal rank have been shown to affect cub growth and survival, with cubs of higher ranking mothers being able to have better access to food and to receive less conspecific aggression than cubs of lower ranking females. Although these effects exist, there has been anecdotal evidence of both high-ranking mothers producing very few cubs successfully, and of low-ranking mothers rearing multiple litters successfully. I want to examine if different maternal styles exist within individual spotted hyenas and if these differences in maternal style can account for differences in maternal behavior not caused by rank differences. It has been reported that the milk composition of spotted hyenas has the highest energy and protein content of any fissiped carnivore. Although it has been suggested that milk composition changes in response to prey abundance, there have been no published data on this. I am also planning to examine the milk composition of spotted hyena in order to see where it ranks compared to that of other carnivores, and to see if its composition changes over both the age of the cub and mother.
strick55 [at] msu.edu