Get in touch! @delphinedemoor.bsky.social‬

Hello! I am Delphine, a behavioural ecologist interested in the evolution, function and diversity of animal social relationships. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher with Jenny Tung at the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. In my research, I combine detailed studies of the causes and consequences of social relationships with broad, cross-species comparisons of social systems.

Much of my work focuses on studying social relationships in long-term research sites, including the baboons of the Amboseli Baboon Research Project and macaques at the Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary and the Cayo Santiago Field Station. In these systems, I investigate how evolutionary pressures and constraints shape social strategies. I often combine detailed social data with molecular data, to examine the role of kinship in driving social preferences, to ask how social experience translates into fitness outcomes, and to test whether social traits are heritable and able to evolve in response to selection.

To better understand what drives variation in social networks, I also take a comparative approach. As part of this, I created MacaqueNet, the world’s largest standardized database of social network data across 61 populations and 14 macaque species. I also develop methods to address challenges with comparative social network analysis, such as variation in how social behaviors are sampled and measured across taxa and research teams.

You can find out more about my past and ongoing projects here, and find my publications and CV here. Thanks for visiting!

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