For my Ph.D. dissertation, I'm studying cooperative food sharing in vampire bats. Female vampires will often regurgitate food for both kin and non-kin roostmates who failed to feed. What keeps donors from being exploited by non-donors? Jerry Wilkinson first described this behavior nearly 30 years ago and it is still a classic textbook example of reciprocity-- the idea that the bats will contingently donate food to hungry roostmates who have helped them previously, and will withhold help to those who do not return favors. However, this interpretation of food sharing is highly controversial, and several important questions remain. 

Is food sharing among non-relatives simply a byproduct of kin selection or harassment? Is receiving past help a better predictor of food sharing than kinship? What social information do vampire bats use when deciding whether to help others? Will the bats punish freeloaders by reducing aid to partners who don't reciprocate? Do the bats compete to be good social partners? I hope to answer these questions through controlled observation and experiment. 

Read Wilkinson's original 1984 paper in Nature. See also this past coverage in David Attenborough's Trials of Life (video), Scientific American magazine, The Selfish Gene, Perspectives on Animal Behavior, and Radiolab (audio). 

I'm currently supported by the Ford Foundation. Past work on this project has been graciously supported by the University of Maryland, Cosmos Club Foundation, American Society of Mammalogists, Explorer's Club Washington Group, and Sigma Xi. I'm currently working in collaboration with the Organization for Bat Conservation.