Faculty Profiles

Steven L. Lima

Professor

Ph.D., University of Rochester

College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor

Phone: 812-237-3677
E-mail: slima@indstate.edu
Office: Science Building 275

Windows Media VideoResearch Video: Regular (8.67 mb) - Lo-Res (1.91 mb)

Research Interests: evolutionary ecology; predator-prey interactions; ornithology; conservation biology.

Predator-Prey Interactions
One of ecology's most basic truisms is that all animals must eat to survive, and virtually all are potential food for other animals. My predator-prey research represents an attempt to fully understand this truism, and in so doing, gain new insight into the nature of ecological systems. Research in this area spans the spectrum from theoretical to field work, and can be grouped into two major areas.

The first of these areas focuses on the behavioral decisions of prey. Animals that are potential prey for others face a profound daily conflict because behavioral options leading to maximally efficient food intake often leave them vulnerable to predators. Much of my research program concerns the way in which animals trade-off the conflicting demands of efficient food intake and predator avoidance.

The second area focuses on the ecological implications of anti-predator behavior in prey. In effect, this research represents an attempt to understand the non-lethal effects of predators on ecological systems. Some areas of work here concern the ways in which successful escape magnifies a predator's effect on prey populations, the influence of anti-predator behavior on predator-prey population dynamics, and the large-scale interactions between predator and prey across an ecological landscape. This "large-scale" work involves an intensive investigation of the behavior of the predators themselves (mainly raptors).

A freshly radio-tagged sharp-shinned hawk. These hawks feed exclusively on small birds during the winter. Radio-tracking studies are underway with the goal of gaining a much better understanding of the predatory behavior of these elusive hawks.
© 2001 by Steven L. Lima

Animal Behavior and Ecological Landscapes
My work in this area fills a major void in our understanding of animal behavior: how animals interact behaviorally with the greater ecological landscape. Recent work has focused on how animals perceive and detect distant landscape elements as they move across a landscape, and how animals might move across landscapes in the most efficient manner possible. Ongoing research also links this landscape-level perspective on behavior to the general phenomenon of behavioral interactions between predator and prey.

Avian Ecology and Conservation
Work here (in collaboration with Dr. Peter Scott) has focused on birds inhabiting the reclaimed surface coal mines of the Midwest. Present work focuses primarily on grassland birds, especially Henslow's sparrows, but future work will expand to consider marsh birds and waterfowl. This ecological research covers basic survey work, demography (nesting success), and landscape-level ecological analyses of avian abundance. The overall goal of this work is to determine the extent to which reclaimed surface coal mines represent unrealized potential in the conservation of many declining grassland and wetland birds.

Selected Publications

Bednekoff, P. A. and S. L. Lima. 2004. Risk allocation and competition in foraging groups: reversed effects of competition if group size varies under risk of predation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271: 1491-1496.

Roth, T. C. and S. L. Lima. 2003. Hunting behavior and diet of Cooper's Hawks: An urban view of the small-bird-in-winter paradigm. Condor 105: 474-483.

Lima, S. L., W. A. Mitchell, and T. C. Roth. 2003. Predators feeding on behaviourally responsive prey: some implications for classical models of optimal diet choice. Evolutionary Ecology Research 5: 1083-1102.

Lima, S. L. 2002. Putting predators back into behavioral predator-prey interactions. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17:70-75.

Mitchell, W. A. and S. L. Lima. 2002. Predator-prey shell games: large-scale movement and its implications for decision-making by prey. Oikos 99: 249-259.

Boysen, A. F., S. L. Lima, and G. S. Bakken. 2001. Does the thermal environment influence vigilance behavior in dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis)? An approach using standard operative temperature. Journal of Thermal Biology 26: 605-612.

Franklin, W. E. and S. L. Lima. 2001. Laterality in avian vigilance: do sparrows have a favourite eye? Animal Behaviour 62: 879-885.

Bajema, R. A. and S. L. Lima. 2000. Landscape-level analyses of Henslow's sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii) abundance in large, reclaimed coal mine grasslands. American Midland Naturalist: in press.

Rattenborg, N. C., S. L. Lima, and C. J. Amlaner. 1999. Half-awake to the risk of predation. Nature 397: 397-398.

Lima, S. L. 1998. Non-lethal effects in the ecology of predator-prey interactions. BioScience 48: 25-34.

Bednekoff, P. A. and S. L. Lima. 1998. Randomness, chaos, and confusion in the study of anti-predator vigilance. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13: 284-287.