Almost no other animal on Earth sees the world the way humans do, so the visual experiences of most of Earth’s other inhabitants are alien to us; huge variation exists in, for example, how animals see color and spatial detail. Dr. Caves' research seeks to understand how and why animals do what they do by trying to see the world through their eyes. Her lab blends animal behavior, sensory ecology, and evolutionary biology to try and understand animal cooperation, specifically how members of different species perceive and recognize one another, and decide to cooperate.
Dr. Caves completed an M.Phil in Zoology at the University of Cambridge, a Ph.D. in Biology at Duke University, and a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellowship at the University of Exeter before joining the faculty as an assistant professor in the Ecology, Evolution, & Marine Biology Department at the University of California Santa Barbara in 2021. In 2024, she began her appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Brown.
Caves, Eleanor M., Davis, Alexander L., Nowicki, Stephen, Johnsen, Sönke. "Backgrounds and the evolution of visual signals." Trends in Ecology & Evolution, vol. 39, no. 2, 2024, pp. 188-198. |
Caves EM, Fernández-Juricic E, Kelley LA. "Ecological and morphological correlates of visual acuity in birds." Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 227, no. 2, 2024. |
Caves EM, Davis AL, Johnsen S. "Nanoscale ultrastructures increase the visual conspicuousness of signalling traits in obligate cleaner shrimps." Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 227, no. 16, 2024. |
Tibbetts EA, Harris OK, Morehouse NI, Caves EM. "The Evolution of Simplifying Heuristics in Visual Cognition: Categorization, Specialization, and Visual Illusions." Annual Review of Vision Science, 2024. |
None, None, Heard, Madison, Nordheim, Caitlin, McKinley, Cheyenne, Zilz, Zoe, Jones, Victoria, Vincent, Bridget, Caves, Eleanor. "Excluded Identity Retention in STEM: A Roadmap for Inclusive Undergraduate Research Symposia." Oceanography, vol. 36, no. 4, 2023. |
Caves EM, Sutton TT, Warrant EJ, Johnsen S. "Measures and models of visual acuity in epipelagic and mesopelagic teleosts and elasmobranchs." J Comp Physiol A, vol. 209, no. 5, 2023, pp. 807-826. |
Caves EM, Kelley LA. "Proportional processing of a visual mate choice signal in the green swordtail, Xiphophorus hellerii." Ecology Letters, vol. 26, no. 4, 2023, pp. 575-585. |
Moore, Christopher M., Shaw, Allison K., Bruninga‐Socolar, Bethanne, Caves, Eleanor M., Karnish, Alex T., Kiesewetter, Kasey N., Nelson, Annika S., Pringle, Elizabeth G.
"The Movement Ecology of Mutualism ( |
Bullough K, Kuijper B, Caves EM, Kelley LA. "Weber's Law." Current Biology, vol. 33, no. 19, 2023, pp. R992-R993. |
EM Caves, PA Green, and M Hughes.
"Communication." The Routledge International Handbook of Comparative Psychology, edited by A.R. Ridley, P. d’Ettorre, and T.M. Freeberg, Routledge, 2022, pp. 147-159.
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Caves EM, Green PA, Zipple MN, Bharath D, Peters S, Johnsen S, Nowicki S. "Comparison of Categorical Color Perception in Two Estrildid Finches." The American Naturalist, vol. 197, no. 2, 2021, pp. 190-202. |
Caves EM, Dixit T, Colebrook-Robjent JFR, Hamusikili L, Stevens M, Thorogood R, Spottiswoode CN. "Hosts elevate either within-clutch consistency or between-clutch distinctiveness of egg phenotypes in defence against brood parasites." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 288, no. 1953, 2021, pp. 20210326. |
Caves EM, de Busserolles F, Kelley LA. "Sex differences in behavioural and anatomical estimates of visual acuity in the green swordtail, Xiphophorus helleri." Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 224, no. 24, 2021. |
Caves EM. "The behavioural ecology of marine cleaning mutualisms." Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, vol. 96, no. 6, 2021, pp. 2584-2601. |
Caves EM, Johnsen S. "The sensory impacts of climate change: bathymetric shifts and visually mediated interactions in aquatic species." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 288, no. 1949, 2021, pp. 20210396. |
Dixit T, Caves EM, Spottiswoode CN, Horrocks NPC. "Why and how to apply Weber's Law to coevolution and mimicry." Evolution, vol. 75, no. 8, 2021, pp. 1906-1919. |
Caves, Eleanor M., Troscianko, Jolyon, Kelley, Laura A. "A customizable, low‐cost optomotor apparatus: A powerful tool for behaviourally measuring visual capability." Methods in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 11, no. 10, 2020, pp. 1319-1324. |
Caves, Eleanor M., Schweikert, Lorian E., Green, Patrick A., Zipple, Matthew N., Taboada, Carlos, Peters, Susan, Nowicki, Stephen, Johnsen, Sönke. "Variation in carotenoid-containing retinal oil droplets correlates with variation in perception of carotenoid coloration." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, vol. 74, no. 7, 2020. |
Zipple MN, Caves EM, Green PA, Peters S, Johnsen S, Nowicki S. "Categorical colour perception occurs in both signalling and non-signalling colour ranges in a songbird." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 286, no. 1903, 2019, pp. 20190524. |
Caves EM, Chen C, Johnsen S. "The cleaner shrimp Lysmata amboinensis adjusts its behaviour towards predatory versus non-predatory clients." Biology letters, vol. 15, no. 9, 2019, pp. 20190534. |
Schweikert LE, Caves EM, Solie SE, Sutton TT, Johnsen S. "Variation in rod spectral sensitivity of fishes is best predicted by habitat and depth." Journal of fish biology, vol. 95, no. 1, 2019, pp. 179-185. |
Caves EM, Nowicki S, Johnsen S. "Von Uexküll Revisited: Addressing Human Biases in the Study of Animal Perception." Integrative and Comparative Biology, vol. 59, no. 6, 2019, pp. 1451-1462. |
Caves EM, Green PA, Zipple MN, Peters S, Johnsen S, Nowicki S. "Categorical perception of colour signals in a songbird." Nature, vol. 560, no. 7718, 2018, pp. 365-367. |
Caves EM, Green PA, Johnsen S. "Mutual visual signalling between the cleaner shrimp Ancylomenes pedersoni and its client fish." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 285, no. 1881, 2018, pp. 20180800. |
Fitak, Robert R., Caves, Eleanor M., Johnsen, Sönke. "Orientation in Pill Bugs: An Interdisciplinary Activity to Engage Students in Concepts of Biology, Physics & Circular Statistics." The American Biology Teacher, vol. 80, no. 8, 2018, pp. 608-618. |
Schweikert LE, Fitak RR, Caves EM, Sutton TT, Johnsen S. "Spectral sensitivity in ray-finned fishes: diversity, ecology and shared descent." Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 221, no. Pt 23, 2018. |
Caves EM, Brandley NC, Johnsen S. "Visual Acuity and the Evolution of Signals." Trends in Ecology & Evolution, vol. 33, no. 5, 2018, pp. 358-372. |
Caves, Eleanor M., Johnsen, Sönke.
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Caves EM, Stevens M, Spottiswoode CN. "Does coevolution with a shared parasite drive hosts to partition their defences among species?." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 284, no. 1854, 2017. |
Caves EM, Sutton TT, Johnsen S. "Visual acuity in ray-finned fishes correlates with eye size and habitat." Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 220, no. Pt 9, 2017, pp. 1586-1596. |
Caves EM, Frank TM, Johnsen S. "Spectral sensitivity, spatial resolution and temporal resolution and their implications for conspecific signalling in cleaner shrimp." Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 219, no. Pt 4, 2016, pp. 597-608. |
Caves EM, Stevens M, Iversen ES, Spottiswoode CN. "Hosts of avian brood parasites have evolved egg signatures with elevated information content." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 282, no. 1810, 2015. |
Caves EM, Jennings SB, Hillerislambers J, Tewksbury JJ, Rogers HS. "Natural experiment demonstrates that bird loss leads to cessation of dispersal of native seeds from intact to degraded forests." PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 5, 2013, pp. e65618. |
Our current research focuses on three large areas:
1. The Behavioral and Sensory Ecology of Cleaning Interactions
An astonishing example of cooperative relationship occurs when a cleaner shrimp ("cleaner") removes an eats parasites from coral reef fish, which we call "clients." Intriguingly, many of the species of fish that cleaner shrimp service are predatory fish that can and regularly do eat crustaceans, which raises the question: why doesn't the client eat the cleaner? We seek to understand the behavioral ecology of these interactions (for example, how they vary with variation in the biotic or abiotic context), and the sensory ecology that allows them to occur (how do cleaners and clients recognize one another, or communicate to one another that they are partners rather than, respectively, a food item and a predator?). Leveraging the tractability of cleaners and clients for study in both field and lab, our upcoming projects will explore links between perception, partner recognition, and cooperation over scales ranging from the individual (What aspects of interspecies cooperation are learned or innate? Do perception and recognition change over a lifespan?) to the ecological (Does variation in the biotic or abiotic context alter perception, and thus partner recognition and cooperative decisions?) to the evolutionary (How does perception compare across species? How do the mechanisms of partner recognition evolve under selection from partner sensory systems?).
2. The Relationship Between Visual Capability and Visual Signaling
Animal visual capabilities differ significantly from our own, so when we study how animals use vision to communicate (for example by displaying a color patch or showing off a magnificent feather train), we must account for the appropriate receiver’s visual capabilities. Much of our research attempts to apply measures of receiver visual capabilities to studies of signaling, when animals use structures or behaviors to communicate with one another. I am particularly interested in variation in spatial vision (visual acuity) capability across the animal kingdom, since most animals do not perceive the same level of spatial detail as do humans. Acuity is an understudied yet ecologically and behaviorally important aspect of visual capability, as it dictates what details an animal can or cannot resolve in a given scene. It is also extremely variable across species, spanning at least four orders of magnitude in animals with image-forming eyes. Our research on visual acuity focuses on describing cross-species variation in acuity, exploring the ecological and morphological factors underlying that diversity, using behavioral assays to integrate measures of acuity with studies of signaling.
3. Perceptual Processing
Animals assess one another using signals in a range of contexts that are critically important for survival and reproduction, from mate choice to agonistic encounters. Two key factors that influence the receiver’s interpretation of visual stimuli are the physiology of the sensory system, as well as perceptual processes that occur after a stimulus is transduced by a sensory organ. Our research uses a variety of techniques to quantify animal visual capabilities, and behavioral assays to examine how animals respond to variation in signal form and information. In particular, I am interested in perceptual processes by which animals cannot perceive, or do not attend to, information that exists (and that we as human researchers can measure). For example, in categorical perception, although continuous variation in a stimulus exists, a viewer perceives only category designations.
ACTIVE
NSF IOS Behavioral Systems Standard Grant: Cooperation in Context: Biotic and abiotic drivers of interaction outcome in cleaner shrimp - client fish mutualisms.August 1 2024-July 31 2027. $856, 462 total to PI Caves
Year | Degree | Institution |
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2018 | PhD | Duke University |
2012 | MPhil | University of Cambridge |
2011 | BA | Pomona College |
George A. Bartholomew Early Career Award, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2024
Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Award, American Society of Naturalists, 2019
Dorothy Skinner Award for Research Excellence, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2019
University Scholars Fellowship, Duke University, 2013-2018
James B. Duke Fellowship, Duke University, 2013-2017
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring, Duke University, 2017
National Geographic Young Explorer, 2016
National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow, 2013-2016
Downing Fellowship for Study at the University of Cambridge, Downing College, Cambridge, 2011-2012
Barry M. Goldwater Scholar, United States Congress, 2010-2011