Prof. Amiyaal Ilany
Research work
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.
Areas of interest & scientific knowledge
Behavioral Neuroscience
Selected Publications
- Ilany, A., & Akcay, E. (2016). Social inheritance can explain the structure of animal social networks. Nature communications, 7(1), 12084.
- Ilany, A., Holekamp, K. E., & Akçay, E. (2021). Rank-dependent social inheritance determines social network structure in spotted hyenas. Science, 373(6552), 348-352.
- Demartsev, V., Gordon, N., Barocas, A., Bar-Ziv, E., Ilany, T., Goll, Y., Ilany, A. and 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(6), pp.623-634.
- Ilany, A., Booms, A. S., & Holekamp, K. E. (2015). Topological effects of network structure on long‐term social network dynamics in a wild mammal. Ecology letters, 18(7), 687-695.
- Ilany, A., Barocas, A., Koren, L., Kam, M., & Geffen, E. (2013). Structural balance in the social networks of a wild mammal. Animal Behaviour, 85(6), 1397-1405.
