פרופ' עמי יעל אילני

Amiyaal Ilany has been an Associate Professor at the School of Zoology and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History since 2024. He received all his degrees from Tel Aviv University. He thinks he was born at the wrong time, because 35 million years ago hyraxes the size of rhinos lived in Africa.

Education
 

2016-2024: Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University

2015-2016: Postdoctoral researcher, University of Pennsylvania

2012-2015: Postdoctoral fellow, National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee

Ph.D. (2012) Zoology, Tel Aviv University

M.Sc. (2006), Zoology, Tel Aviv University 

B.Sc. (2002), Biology & Computer Science, Tel Aviv University 

We study broad aspects of social behavior in the wild. We use empirical and theoretical methods to better understand behavioral phenomena. Much of our research focuses on the study of social networks and on principles of animal communication. Students in the lab can do field work on rock hyraxes in Ein Gedi, where we have been monitoring a population for more than 25 years, and/or analyze the data we collected and develop theoretical models. We are interested in questions such as:

- How do social networks affect longevity and reproductive success?

- What is the role of social associations in shaping the microbiome?

- How do communication patterns interact with social structure?

- How do males and females choose who to mate with?

- What is the structure of different signals and how did they evolve?
 

Potential students are welcome to develop their own projects on any relevant study system.

Davidovich U., Wachtel I., Halevi R., Zidon R., Lazagabaster I. A., Rovelli V., Meiri M., Porat R., Ulllman M., Jacobi Y., Ilany A., Marom N., Porat N. (2024) Leopard traps in the Judean Desert reveal long-term impact of humans on top predator populations. Quaternary Science Reviews 333: 108667

Atzeni L., Ilany A., Geffen E., Cushman S. A., Kaszta Z., Macdonald D. W. (2024) Reviving the Arabian leopard: Harnessing historical data to map habitat and pave the way for reintroduction. Biological Conservation 291: 110440.

Frere C. H., Class B., Potvin D. A., Ilany A. (2024) Social inheritance of avoidances shapes the structure of animal social networks. Behavioral Ecology 35: 1-8.

Goll Y., Bordes C., Weissman Y. A., Shnitzer I., Beukboom R., Ilany A., Koren L., Geffen E. (2023) The interaction between cortisol and testosterone predicts leadership within rock hyrax social groups. Scientific Reports 13: 14857.

Demartsev V., Haddas-Sasson H., Ilany A., Koren L., Geffen E. (2023) Male rock hyraxes that maintain an isochronous song rhythm achieve higher reproductive success. Journal of Animal Ecology 92: 1520-1531.

Bordes C., Beukeboom R., Goll Y., Koren L., Ilany A. (2022) High-resolution tracking of hyrax social interactions highlights nighttime drivers of animal sociality. Communications Biology 5: 1378.

Dragic N., Keynan O., Ilany A. (2022) Protocol to record multiple interaction types in small social groups of birds. STAR Protocols 3: 101814.

Hemelrijk C. K., Seex L., Pederboni M., Ilany A., Geffen E., Koren L. (2022) Adult sex ratios and partial dominance of females over males in the rock hyrax. Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution 10: 1004919.

Aloni I., Ilany A. (2022) Maladaptive evolution or how a beneficial mutation may get lost due to nepotism. Communications Biology 5: 965.

Zemah-Shamir Z., Mourier J., Ilany A., Bigal E., Scheinin A., Tchernov D. (2022) Preliminary insights of a mixed-species shark aggregation: a case study of two carcharhinids from the Mediterranean Sea. Environmental Biology of Fishes 105: 623-634.

Goll Y., Bordes C., Weissman Y. A., Shnitzer I., Beukboom R., Ilany A., Koren L., Geffen E. (2022) Sex-associated and context-dependent leadership in the rock hyrax. iScience 25: 104063.

Dragic N., Keynan O., Ilany A. (2021) Multilayer social networks reveal the social complexity of a cooperatively breeding bird. iScience 24: 103336.

Ilany A., Holekamp K. E., Akcay E. (2021) Rank-dependent social inheritance determines social network structure in spotted hyenas. Science 373: 348-352.

Kerhenbaum A., Demartsev V., Gammon D. E., Geffen E., Gustison M. L., Ilany A., Lameira A. R. (2021) Shannon entropy as a robust estimator of Zipf’s Law in animal vocal communication repertoires. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 12: 553-564.

Bentzur A., Ben-Shaanan S., Benishou J., Costi E., Ilany A., Shohat-Ophir G. (2021) Social interaction and network structure in groups of Drosophila males are shaped by prior social experience and group composition. Current Biology 31: 1-16.

Weissman Y., Demartsev V., Ilany A., Barocas A., Bar-Ziv E., Koren L., Geffen E. (2020) A crescendo in the inner structure of snorts: a reflection of increasing arousal in rock hyrax songs? Animal Behaviour 166: 163-170.

Ilany A. (2020) Complex societies, simple processes. Behavioral Ecology 31: 13-13.

Demartsev V., Gordon N., Barocas A., Bar-Ziv E., Ilany T., Goll Y., Ilany A., Geffen E. (2019) The “Law of Brevity” in animal communication: sex-specific signaling optimization is determined by call amplitude rather than duration. Evolution Letters 3: 623-634.

Koren L., Weissman Y., Schnitzer I., Beukeboom R., Bar Ziv E., Demartsev V., Barocas A., Ilany A., Geffen E.  (2019) Sexually opposite effects of testosterone on mating success in wild rock hyrax. Behavioral Ecology 30: 1611-1617.

Weissman Y., Demartsev V., Ilany A., Bar-Ziv E., Geffen E., Barocas A., Koren L. (2019) Social context mediates testosterone’s effect on snort acoustics in male hyrax songs. Hormones and Behavior 114: 104535.

Demartsev V., Kershenbaum A., Ilany A., Barocas A., Weissman Y., Koren L., Geffen E. (2019) Lifetime changes in vocal syntactic complexity of rock hyrax males are determined by social class. Animal Behaviour 153: 151-158.

Weissman Y., Demartsev V., Ilany A., Barocas A., Bar-Ziv E., Schnitzer I., Geffen E., Koren L. (2019) Acoustic stability in hyrax snorts: Vocal tightrope-walkers or wrathful verbal assailants? Behavioral Ecology 30: 223-230.