Peering into the world of wild passerines with 3d-SOCS: Synchronized video capture and posture estimation
Michael Chimento, Alex Hoi Hang Chan, Lucy M Aplin, and Fumihiro Kano." Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2025.
CV
Education
- B.A. in Politics, New York University, 2012
- M.Sc. in Evolution of Language and Cognition, 2018
- Ph.D in Biology, IMPRS for Organismal Biology / Konstanz University, 2022
Skills
- Experimental design
- Data analysis
- Programming
- Python (advanced)
- R (advanced)
- Writing
Publications
Immigrant birds learn from socially observed differences in payoffs when their environment changes
Michael Chimento, Gustavo Alarcon-Nieto, Lucy M. Aplin." PLOS Biology, 2024.
The contribution of movement to social network structure and spreading dynamics under simple and complex transmission
Michael Chimento, Damien R. Farine." Philosophical Transactions B, 2024.
Understanding the Role of Naive Learners in Cultural Change
Michael Chimento, Lucy Aplin, "Understanding the Role of Naive Learners in Cultural Change." The American Naturalist, 2024.
Cultural diffusion dynamics depend on behavioural production rules
Michael Chimento, Brendan Barrett, Anne Kandler, Lucy Aplin, "Cultural diffusion dynamics depend on behavioural production rules." Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2022.
Efficiency fosters cumulative culture across species
T Gruber*, M Chimento*, LM Aplin, D Biro, "Efficiency fosters cumulative culture across species." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2021.
Complex foraging behaviours in wild birds emerge from social learning and recombination of components
Sonja Wild*, Michael Chimento*, Keith McMahon, Damien Farine, Ben Sheldon, Lucy Aplin, "Complex foraging behaviours in wild birds emerge from social learning and recombination of components." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2021.
Population turnover facilitates cultural selection for efficiency in birds
Michael Chimento, Gustavo Alarc{\'o}n-Nieto, Lucy Aplin, "Population turnover facilitates cultural selection for efficiency in birds." Current Biology, 2021.
Social network architecture and the tempo of cumulative cultural evolution
Mauricio Cantor*, Michael Chimento*, Simeon Smeele*, Peng He, Danai Papageorgiou, Lucy Aplin, Damien Farine, "Social network architecture and the tempo of cumulative cultural evolution." Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2021.
Talks
Insights from methods and models of ephemeral animal culture
Keynote at Culture Conference 2025 @ Utrecht University, Utrecht, NL
Social learning and social processes in two urban adaptor species
Invited seminar at Behavior & Biomechanics seminar @ Oxford University, Oxford, UK
Capstone presentation: An innovation arms-race between parrots and humans?
Conference talk at CES Transformation Fund Capstone Conference @ Durham University, Durham, UK
Great tits use payoff-biased learning when encountering spatial variability
Conference talk at CES Conference @ Durham University, Durham, UK
The importance of environmental variability for the use of social learning strategies in a passerine bird
Conference talk at ECBB Conference @ UZH, Zürich, CH
Social dynamics influence cultural evolution through learning and attention mechanisms
Invited Seminar at Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
The influence of immigration on social learning in birds
Seminar at BEEES (Behaviour, Ecology, Environment and Evolution Seminar), University of Zürich, Zürich, CH
Social networks in flux: how immigration shapes cultural evolution in great tits
Conference talk at Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASSAB) Conference, 2023, Sydney, AUS
Understanding social learning in great tits using dynamic learning models and the quanitification of attention
Seminar at ESLR Society Seminar Series, Virtual
How immigration can shape animal culture
Conference talk at Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) winter conference 2022, Edinburgh, UK
Information loss through population turnover promotes cultural evolution
Poster at Royal Society Scientific Meeting: The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines, London, UK
Linking transmission and production in social learning: How transmission dynamics depend on behavioral production rules
Seminar at ESLR Society Seminar Series, Virtual
How can turnover drive cultural evolution?
ECR talk at IMPRS Grand Challenges Symposium 2021, Konstanz, DE (Virtual)
The importance of population turnover for the evolution of efficiency
Conference talk at Cultural Evolution Society Conference, 2021, Sapporo, JP (Virtual)
Social mechanisms and cultural evolution in Parus major
ECR talk at Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior 2021 Spring Retreat, Konstanz, DE (Virtual)
Turnover and cultural selection for efficiency
ECR talk at IMPRS Grand Challenges Symposium 2020, Konstanz, DE (Virtual)
Turnover facilitates cultural selection for efficiency
Conference talk at The 57th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society, Virtual
Demographic factors and cultural evolution in Parus major
ECR talk at Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior 2020 Spring Retreat, Konstanz, DE
Turnover increases cultural selection for efficient behaviors
Poster at Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) summer conference 2019, Konstanz, DE
Cultural selection for efficiency
Poster at 3rd Annual ESLR Workshop, Leipzig, DE
Modeling strangers: population structure, fluidity and complexity in shared cultural systems
Conference talk at Cultural Evolution Society Conference, 2018, Tempe, AZ, USA