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Lydia Schmidt

Position: PhD student
Email: lydia_schmidt@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de

Research Group Primate Behavioural Ecology
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Human Behaviour, Ecology and Culture
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Germany

and

University of Leipzig Faculty of Life Science
Institute of Biology
Behavioural Ecology Research Group
Talstraße 33
04103 Leipzig
Germany

Current research

Phenotype matching is a main mechanism of kin recognition, defined as the ability to recognize kin based on physical traits. Recognizing kin is advantageous to increase inclusive fitness through social preferences for closely related kin and, simultaneously, to avoid mating with close kin. In primates, facial cues have been shown to play a crucial role in identifying kin, but evidence for visual phenotype matching remains limited and is often confounded by familiarity. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning offer novel approaches to explore subtle phenotypic cues at a finer resolution and in an unbiased manner. The use of AI can therefore significantly improve our understanding of how individuals recognize kin, by identifying and analyzing specific facial features linked to genetic relatedness.

In my PhD project, I aim to use AI technology to investigate visual phenotype matching in free-ranging rhesus macaques living at the Cayo Santiago population in Puerto Rico (USA). By applying AI models to a large dataset of macaque facial images and combining these results with genetic, demographic, and behavioral data, I will explore the extent to which facial cues enable the inference of relatedness by AI and the monkeys themselves. I plan to further validate the facial traits identified by AI through behavioral experiments with free-ranging macaques. This validation will follow an initial pilot study, where human raters evaluate relatedness based on macaque faces. Given that comprehensive genomic data are available for the study population, I further aim to test, whether AI is able to predict realized relatedness (identity-by-descent) from facial cues and how these predictions relate to social behavior.

Curriculum vitae

Education

Since 09/2024PhD student
University of Leipzig (UL) and the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA), Leipzig, Germany
Dissertation title: “Phenotype Matching in Rhesus Macaques: An AI Approach”
Supervisor: Prof Dr Anja Widdig (UL)
Funded by the Leipzig Excellence Fund for Young Researchers, a doctoral funding position linked to the International Max Planck Research School “The Leipzig School of Human Origins” (IMPRS-LSHO)
09/2022-09/2023 MSc Research in Behavior & Cognition
With special qualification in Primatology & Ethology
University of Barcelona (UB), Spain
Thesis title: „The Use of Sight, Smell, and Taste in Relation to Color Vision in Wild Tamarins in South-Eastern Peru“
Supervisors: Dr Jordi Galbany (UB), Dr Gideon Erkenswick (Field Projects International)
10/2019-09/2022MSc Psychology
Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC), Germany
09/2015-01/2019BSc Psychology
Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC), Germany

 

Work & Field Experience

10/2023-07/2024Research Assistant 
Behavioural Ecology Research Group, University of Leipzig, Germany
08/2023Field Course: Genomics in the Jungle 
Field Projects International at Madre de Dios, Peru
01/2022-07/2022Research Intern 
Behavioural Ecology Research Group, University of Leipzig, Germany
07/2021-08/2021 Field Research Assistant 
Field Projects International at Madre de Dios, Peru

 

Funding & Awards

Since 09/2024Leipzig Excellence Fund for Young Researchers 
3-year PhD funding from the University of Leipzig
08/2023 Global Studies Scholarship 
Tuition for the Genomics in the Jungle course from Field Projects International