Sniffing out Primate Scent Communication

Alice Poirier is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Anthropology & Archaeology at the University of Calgary, AB, Canada. She studies primate sensory ecology, in particular chemical communication in relation to reproduction. Alice’s research integrates diverse fields including animal behavior, biochemistry, molecular biology and evolution. Alice graduated a Master’s degree in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution from the University of Montpellier, France, in 2011, after which she spent several years conducting field work in the Peruvian Amazon, following tamarins in the forest and teaching field courses in tropical biology. Alice then embarked on a PhD at Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge, UK, where she studied chemical communication in callitrichids (marmosets and tamarins) in captivity and in the wild. As a postdoc at the University of Calgary, Alice is involved in several multidisciplinary projects in primate sensory ecology, including olfactory reproductive signaling in female spider monkeys, urine-washing behavior and its role in dominance in capuchins, and the role of skin microbiome in the production of odors in tamarins. Alice’s talk will focus on her past and current research on callitrichid chemical communication.