I completed my Ph.D. at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2009, where I studied the hunting behavior, growth, and population-level consequences of foraging decisions in antlion larvae: small insects that construct pit traps in loose soil and ambush passing prey. I then continued to a three-year postdoctoral period at the University of Munich and the University Mainz, Germany, studying the interactions between social parasites and their cavity-dwelling ant hosts.
I joined the School of Zoology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, in October 2012. My lab studies animal behavior and evolutionary ecology, with a particular focus on how animals make decisions under ecological constraints. We ask how animals search for food, move through complex environments, choose where to settle, learn from experience, and cope with stressful or changing conditions.
Most of our work uses insects as model systems, including desert ants, antlions, wormlions, and flour beetles, but we also study small desert vertebrates, such as gerbils and vipers. We combine controlled laboratory experiments, field experiments, and simulation models to understand how small-scale behavioral rules shape broader ecological outcomes.
A central theme in our research is that seemingly simple behaviors, such as following a wall, avoiding an obstacle, constructing a trap, or changing search strategy, can have important consequences for foraging success, competition, survival, and reproduction. Our broader goal is to identify the behavioral mechanisms animals use to cope with complex and changing environments.
