Con Slobodchikoff
| Con Slobodchikoff | |
|---|---|
| Born | China |
| Institutions | Northern Arizona University |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Known for | referential communication in prairie dogs |
Constantine 'Con' Slobodchikoff is an animal behaviorist and conservation biologist. He is a professor at Northern Arizona University where he studies referential communication, using prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni) as a model species. Much of his recent research has shown a complex communicative ability of the Gunnison prairie dog alarm calls. In early 2008 he formed the Animal language Institute to create a place where people can find and share research in animal communication.
He was born in China to Russian émigré parents, and moved to the United States as a young child with his parents, who settled in San Francisco. Slobodchikoff’s early love of biology was fostered by his membership in his teenage years in the Student Section of the California Academy of Sciences, where he went on numerous field trips to different habitats in California. He received an A.A. degree from City College of San Francisco in 1964, and a B.S. in 1966 and Ph.D. degree in 1971, both from the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving his Ph.D., Slobodchikoff joined the biology faculty of Northern Arizona University, where he remains today as a tenured professor. He also was a Fulbright Fellow and a visiting professor at Kenyatta University in Kenya in 1983.
His initial research involved the behavior and ecology of tenebrionid beetles and their response to vertebrate predators. However, in the mid-1980s he switched his research efforts to studying the social behavior and communication of prairie dogs. He has been decoding the communication system of alarm calls, and he and his students have found that prairie dogs have a sophisticated communication system that can identify the species of predator and provides descriptive information about the size, shape, and color of the individual predator animal. His research in prairie dog communication has also shown displacement, the ability to communicate about things that are not present. This finding challenges prior theories on animal communication, since only humans have been known to use this linguistic process. In addition, his work with prairie dogs suggests that they may have a "complex communication system that borders on language." Not only do they have a developed communication system as described above, they also have different escape behaviors in response to different predator calls. His research with the prairie dogs also helps to explain why animals have social behavior. Because these animals form a colony, they form a set of different social groups, which apparently exist for other reasons besides mating and may be a way to take advantage of limited resources. Con also writes a Dog Behavior Blog which gives some advice on how to solve behavior issues and has several short essays about some of the research about dogs and dog behavior.
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