Ignacio Escalante Meza
Assistant Professor
Biological Sciences
Contact
Building & Room:
SES 3364
Email:
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About
Exploring the mechanisms of animal behavior is crucial to understanding their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Additionally, focusing on how and why animals do what they do allows us to further comprehend and predict their responses in the context of changing environmental and evolutionary pressures.
My research program focuses on the mechanisms of animal behavior through the lenses of ecology and evolution. Specifically, I study arachnids and insects in tropical forests in Costa Rica, meadows and wetlands in Wisconsin, and urban landscapes in Chicago. The main topics of my research include: (1) decision-making in navigation, defense, and reproduction; (2) the evolution of shared and divergent communication mechanisms; and (3) how biomechanical and physiological mechanisms shape behavior.
I integrate tools of behavioral ecology, biomechanics, bioacoustics, and physiology to study, for example, the consequences of leg loss on locomotion, habitat use, and reproduction in harvestmen/daddy long-legs, the importance of vibratory communication in sexual selection and speciation in treehoppers, and the role of chemical communication in multi-specific aggregations in Neotropical arachnids.
Selected Publications
Prachand S*, I Escalante. 2026. Patterns and potential drivers of northern establishment in Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus) from community science data. Wilson Journal of Ornithology https://doi.org/10.1080/15594491.2026.2646101.
Farji-Brener AG, J Víquez*, W Vicuña-Zevallos*, M Villaschi*, M Romero-Ceciliano*, D Navas-Muñoz*, I Escalante. 2025. Building extended phenotypes using incomplete environmental information compromises their design and efficiency. Animal Behaviour 228:123310.
Villaseñor-Amador D*, I Escalante. 2025. Grouped and vibrating: The influence of group size, triggering stimuli, and leg loss in bobbing in an arachnid. Ethology 131(5):e13551.
Escalante I, SL O’Brien. 2024. Robustness to leg loss in Opiliones: A review and framework considerations for future research. Integrative & Comparative Biology 64(5):1338-1353.
Rittinger MA*, RL Rodríguez, I Escalante. 2024. Heuristic test reveals little effect of learning and maturation on early prey capture experiences in a web-building spider. Scientific Reports 14:11736.
Escalante I, DO Elias. 2022. Robustness in action: Leg loss does not affect mating success in male harvestmen. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 76:20.
Escalante I, M Domínguez*, D Gómez-Ruiz*, G Machado. 2022. Benefits and costs of multi-specific aggregations in harvestmen (Arachnida: Opiliones). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9:766323.
Escalante I, MA Badger, DO Elias. 2020. Rapid recovery of locomotor performance after leg loss. Scientific Reports 10: 13747.
* = student mentee author
Education
B.S. in Biology, Universidad de Costa Rica. 2009.
M.Sc. in Biology, Universidad de Costa Rica. 2013.
Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California – Berkeley. 2020.
Postdoctoral research associate. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. 2020-2022.