 I completed my PhD research on the ecological consequences of squid personality phenotypes in December 2005.
I have since worked in the lab of Dr. Erik Wapstra on a number of behavioural and life history problems using lizards and small mammals as study organisms. In August of 2007 I joined the Devil Disease Program at the Department of Primary Industries & Water, Hobart, Tasmania.
My current research focus is to understand how we might use behaviour to manage free-living devil populations in light of devil facial tumour disease.
Research Interests
Animals consistently differ from one another in their willingness to take risks, explore novel environments, and act aggressively towards one another. Understanding an animal’s behavioural style across multiple functional contexts (e.g. in mating, foraging, predator encounter contexts) is akin to categorizing its ‘personality phenotype’ or ‘behavioural syndrome’. Variation in behavioural traits forms the raw material for natural selection (in this case defined by an animal’s unique ‘personality’), and individual rates of growth, birth and death determine population dynamics, but almost nothing is known of how the mix of personality phenotypes impact important population-level phenomena.
Research Areas:- Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology
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UnitsSelected Publications:- Sinn, D.L., Gosling, S.D., & Moltschaniwskyj, 2008, 'Development of shy/bold behaviour in squid: context-specific phenotypes associated with developmental plasticity.', Animal Behaviour, 75, pgs. 433-442
- Sinn, D. L., While, G. M. & Wapstra, E., 2008, 'Maternal care in a social lizard: links between female aggression and offspring fitness.
', Animal Behaviour, 76, pgs. 1249-1257
- McEvoy, J., Sinn, D.L., & Wapstra, E., 2008, 'Know thy enemy: the response of a small native mammal to predators of different co-existence history.
', Austral Ecology, 33, pgs. 922-931
- Sinn, D.L., 2008, 'Patterns of activity cycles in juvenile Octopus bimaculoides (Pickford & McConnaughey, 1949)', Americal Malacological Bulletin, 24, pgs. 65-69
- Moltschaniwskyj, N.A., Hall, K., Lipinski, M., Marian, J.E.A.R., Nishiguchi, M., Sakai, M., Shulman, D., Sinclair, B., Sinn, D.L., Staudinger, M., van Gelderen, R., Villanueva, R., & Warnke, K., 2007, 'Ethical and welfare considerations when using cephalopods as experimental animals.', Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 17, pgs. 455-476
- Sinn DL, Apiolaza LA, Moltschaniwskyj NA,, 2006, 'Heritability and fitness-related consequences of squid personality traits.
', Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 19(5), pgs. 1437-1447
- Sinn DL, Moltschaniwskyj NA,, 2005, '
Personality traits in dumpling squid (Euprymna tasmanica): context-specific traits and their correlation with biological characteristics.
', Journal of Comparative Psychology, 119, pgs. 99-110
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