Peter D. Smallwood

CURRICULUM VITA

Contact information:

Department of Biology, E-104-A Gottwald Science Center, University of Richmond.

Phone: 289-8803 e-mail: psmallwo@richmond.edu

 

Education:

Ph.D. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona 1992

M.S. Biology, University of North Carolina 1985

B.S. Zoology (Minor in Statistics), Ohio State University 1983

 

Experience:

Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Richmond 1997-present

Lecturer in Biology, University of Pennsylvania 1995-97

Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept. Biology, Bryn Mawr College 1994-95

Professorial Lecturer, Kennedy Institute of Philosophy and Ethics,  Georgetown University 1995

Postdoctoral Fellow in Integrative Biology, Bryn Mawr College 1992-94

 

Selected publications:

Smallwood, P.D., M.A. Steele, E. Ribbens, and William F. McShea (1998) The effects of seed hoarders on the distribution of tree species: Grey squirrels and oaks as a model system. book chapter in The Ecology of Tree Squirrels (M.A. Steele, D. Zegers, and J. Merritt, eds). Virginia Museum of Natural Science, Publisher.

 

Smallwood, P.D., and J.A. Smallwood. (1998) Seasonal shifts in the sex ratios of fledgling American kestrels: The early bird hypothesis. Evolutionary Ecology 12:839-853.

 

Hadj-Chikh, L.Z., M.A. Steele, and P.D. Smallwood (1996) Caching decisions by Grey Squirrels: A test of the handling time and perishability hypotheses. Animal Behavior 52:941-948.

 

Smallwood, P.D. (1996) An introduction to risk sensitivity: The use of Jensen's inequality to clarify evolutionary arguments of adaptation and constraint. American Zoologist 36:392-401.

 

Smallwood, P.D., and R.V. Cartar (1996) Risk sensitivity in behavior: Where are we now? American Zoologist 36:389-391.

Steele, M.A., and P.D.Smallwood (1994) What are squirrels hiding? Natural History 10/94: 40-45.

 

Smallwood, P.D. (1993) Web-site tenure in the Long-Jawed Spider: Is it risk-sensitive foraging, or conspecific interactions? Ecology 74: 1826-1835.

 

Smallwood, P.D., and W.D. Peters (1986) Grey squirrel food preferences: The effects of tannin and fat concentration. Ecology 67:168-174.

 

Grants:

NSF -special interdisiplinary competition for Collaborative Research at Undergraduate Institutions (C-RUI). Title: A multi-disciplinary approach to the ecological and evolutionary interactions between food-hoarding animals and the oaks. PI's M. A. Steele (Wilkes University), P. D. Smallwood (University of Richmond), J.E. Carlson (Pennsylvania State University), and W.B. Terzaghi (Wilkes University)

 

 

Selected presentations: Recent Invited Seminars

 

Virginia Audubon Society, Williamsburg, VA. 18 February 2000.

 

Symposium: Terrestrial Plant-Animal interactions.

    Hosted by the Society for Integrative and Comparative biology. 7 January 2000.        

Hawk Mountain Research Sanctuary. 18 September 1999

Department of Biology, College of William and Mary. 1 April 1999

Dept. of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University. 28 January 1998

National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 14 November 1997

International Theriological Conference VII, Accapulco, Mexico. 10 September 1997

Dept. Biology, Old Dominion University, Norfolk Virginia. 6 November 1997

Dept. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 11 March 1997

Dept. Biology, University of Michigan, 22 January 1997

Dept. Biology, Cornell College, 15 November 1996

Dept. Wildlife Ecology, Iowa State University, 7 March 1996

Sigma Xi Research Society, Hartford CT chapter. 2 November 1995

Dept. of Biology, Connecticut College. 24 October 1995

Sigma Xi Research Society, Academy of Natural Sciences chapter. 5 April 1995

Dept. Ecology and Evolution, SUNY-Stony Brook. 1 February 1995

International Colloquium on the Ecology of Tree Squirrels. 22-28 April 1994

Conservation Biology Group, University of Pennsylvania, 31 March 1994

 

 

Courses taught:

Behavioral Ecology (Biol 344; Fall semesters)

Organismal Biology (Biol 212; spring semesters)

Philosophical Issues in Evolutionary Biology. (Biol 380; spring semesters 1998).

 

Scientific Societies:

Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB):

        Secretary for the Division of Animal Behavior

International Society for Behavioral Ecology (ISBE)

Animal Behavior Society (ABS)

Ecological Society of America (ESA)

Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society (S X )

 

Research Interests:

I am a behavioral ecologist by training. My work extends from studies of the behavior of individual organisms to plant-animal interactions and their community-wide effects. I have studied the foraging strategies of long jawed spiders, as well as their breeding behaviors. I recently published a study of the breeding behavior of Kestrels (a small falcon). In the past few years, much of my research efforts have focused on the interactions between grey squirrels and the oaks they depend upon for their winter food supply. I am now studying fox squirrels, flying squirrels, and deer mice. My work has been reported in the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Natural History, BBC's Wildlife Magazine, and National Geographic Magazine.