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Denise S. Pope, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

 

Getting to Know Denise S. Pope...

My field of study is animal behavior, focusing on the function and evolution of communication and mating behavior. I have worked primarily on fiddler crabs, which are a genus of small intertidal crabs famous for their sexual dimorphism (males have one claw which is greatly enlarged in relation to the symmetrical small claws of females). Male fiddler crabs use these claws as weapons in competition with rival males, and in a "claw waving display" which is presumed to attract females for mating. My work has focused on experimentally determining the function of this communication display, examining how it has evolved in concert with mating behavior across the genus of fiddler crabs, and more generally increasing our knowledge about the ecology and natural history of some lesser-studies species in the genus. We are fortunate to have several species of fiddler crabs resident on the Gulf Coast, and I will be conducting field work on some of these species in the summer months.

What she teaches...

I teach the introductory Evolution and the Diversity of Life course (Biol 1318 and 1118), and upper division courses in Animal Behavior (Biol 3430), and Invertebrate Zoology (Biol 3425).

Her representative publications include...

  • Pope, D. S. in press. Waving in a crowd: fiddler crabs signal in networks. In: Animal Communication Networks (ed. by P. K. McGregor). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Pope, D. S. 2000. Testing function of fiddler crab claw waving by manipulating social context. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology 47: 432-437.
  • Pope, D. S. 2000. Video playback experiments testing the function of claw waving in the sand fiddler crab. Behaviour 137: 1349-1360.

Degrees...

  • B.A., St. John's College, Santa Fe, NM
  • Ph.D., Duke University, Durham, NC

Contact Information...

Phone number: (210) 999-7233

Email at: dpope@trinity.edu

Personal homepage: www.trinity.edu/dpope

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