Lingwang Kong

Project: Quantifying ecological and evolutionary forces shaping social effects on senescence

Social effects are associated with both costs and benefits to individuals, which may impact their senescence. For example, individuals may help relatives to breed, which can slow the senescence of their relatives, but may accelerate their own senescence. Lingwang will investigate the relationship between social effects and senescence in a natural population, using the long-term Seychelles warbler study on Cousin Island. By analyzing long-term data on various traits, he aims to understand the impact of social effects on senescence, improving our understanding of eco-evolutionary dynamics in natural populations.