Steven M. Phelps

personal site

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Texas 1999

618 Carr
P.O. Box 118525
Gainesville, FL
32611-8525
Voice: (352) 392-6212   Fax: (352) 392-3704
phelps@zoology.ufl.edu

Research Interests

We are interested in the mechanisms of animal behavior and how those mechanisms evolve. The lab employs a diverse array of approaches, ranging from computational models to the molecular analysis of gene expression. This work is strongly anchored in empirical studies of animal behavior in both the laboratory and field. Current projects are aimed at understanding the role of the vasopressin V1a receptor in rodent social behaviors. We would like to know why the vasopressin receptor shows so much within and between species variation in brain expression, and how this variation in neural phenotype contributes to social behaviors. The behaviors we study include the formation of pair-bonds in the monogamous prairie vole, and the production and perception of advertisement calls in the singing mouse. These projects involve substantial field components in both the U.S. and Central America.

Students Currently Supervised

Srividhan Balakrishnan
Sri is a recently graduated Master’s Student in computer science. Sri completed two projects in the lab. One involved generating behavioral tracking software for automating video analysis. The second was a bioinformatics project developing a database that allows one to go from microarray data to 5’ flanking sequences in the mouse genome.

Dimitri Blondel (MS, Co-advisor with Brockmann)
Dimitri is a master’s student who has been performing lab and field studies of the behavior of the singing mice (genus Scotinomys). The field work involves live-trapping and radio-tracking mice in the cloud-forests of Panama. The lab work includes mate-affiliation studies aimed at understanding the mating system of the two species.

GuangJun Zhang (PhD, with Martin Cohn)
GuangJun is a graduate student with Marty Cohn who has also worked a bit in our lab. GuangJun has developed fusion proteins for the V1aR in both singing mice and prairie voles, and is currently developing silencing RNA methods for manipulating gene expression in the brains of these species.

Representative Publications

S.M. Phelps and L.J. Young. 2003. Extraordinary diversity in vasopressin (V1a) receptor expression in wild prairie voles: Patterns of variation and covariation. Journal of Comparative Neurology 466:564-576.

M.J. Ryan, W. Rand, P.C. Hurd, S.M. Phelps and A.S. Rand. 2003. Generalization in response to mate recognition signals. American Naturalist 161:380-294.

S.M. Phelps, M.J. Ryan and A.S. Rand. 2001. Vestigial preferences in neural networks and túngara frogs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(23):13161-13166.

S.M. Phelps and M.J. Ryan. 2000. History influences signal recognition: Neural network models of túngara frogs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 267:1633-1639.

S.M. Phelps, J. Lydon, B.W. O’Malley and D. Crews. 1998. Regulation of male sexual behavior by progesterone receptor, sexual experience, and androgens. Hormones and Behavior34:294-302.