Delphine De Moor

Delphine is a behavioural ecologist interested in the evolution, function, and diversity of animal social relationships. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

In her research, she combines detailed studies of the causes and consequences of social relationships with broad, cross-species comparisons of social systems. Much of her work focuses on studying social relationships in long-term research systems, including the baboons of the Amboseli Baboon Research Project and macaques at the Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary and the Cayo Santiago Field Station. In these systems, she looks at how evolutionary pressures and constraints shape individual social networks, including how factors like kinship, the environment, and genetics influence social behaviour.

To see how these patterns hold across species, and to better understand what drives variation in social networks, she also takes a comparative approach. As part of this, she created MacaqueNet, a global network of macaque researchers. Together, the MacaqueNet community built a standardised dataset on social behaviour across 61 populations and 14 macaque species.

To find out more about her past and current projects, visit her personal website.