Behaviour
Ecology
Evolution
I am a behavioural ecologist interested in how behaviour shapes the life of animals.
My research is focused on how behaviour develops and evolves over time, and how behaviour is modulated by various biotic and abiotic factors, such as social environment, physiology, climate and habitat.
I received my PhD from Stockholm University, Sweden, working with wolves and dogs to answer questions about how behaviour has evolved during domestication. My PhD work also inspired me to take a closer look at the domestication syndrome hypothesis and how it applies to modern day dogs.
Currently, I am postdoc at Lund University where I, as a part of the Cornwallis group, am focusing on questions relating to social evolution and cooperation, and developing my skills in comparative analyses.
christina.hansen (at) zoologi.su.se
NEWS!
October 12th 2022: Our commentary on point-following in wolves and dogs point-following and their willingness to approach a stranger is out in Learning & Behavior today. Great collaboration with Clive DL Wynne and Wouter van der Bijl. Find the paper here.
September 20th 2022: Another study from the Dog Wolf Project is published today, this time in Ecology and Evolution. It is on attachment behaviour in wolves and dogs and builds off the brilliant master thesis of Linn Larsson. Find it here.
July 7th 2022: Our critique of the Swedish Parliament's proposal to cull half of the Swedish wolf population was published in Science today. Great international collaboration. Find it here.
April 11th 2020: Our follow-up paper exploring the domestication syndrome in dogs "Morphology does not covary with predicted behavioral correlations of the domestication syndrome in dogs" was published in Evolution Letters today. Super fun collaboration with Wouter van der Bijl and Christopher W. Wheat. Find it here
January 16th 2020: "Intrinsic Ball Retrieving in Wolf Puppies Suggests Standing Ancestral Variation for Human-Directed Play Behavior" was published in iScience today. Find it here
September 4th 2019: "Dogs, but Not Wolves, Lose Their Sensitivity Toward Novelty With Age" is the first paper from the pratical part of my PhD where we hand-raised dogs and wolves for behavioural comparisons. It was published today in Frontiers in Psychology. Find it here
June 3rd 2019: "Behavioural correlations of the domestication syndrome are decoupled in modern dog breeds" was published in Nature Communications today. Find it here