Research Description

In recent years, my research has focused on hormonal substrates of behavior and morphology in spotted hyenas, with particular attention to issues of sexual differentiation. Female spotted hyenas are the most highly "masculinized" of extant female mammals, in terms of genital development. Also, within their natural social groups, adult females are highly aggressive and totally dominate adult males during social interactions. Through the study of a colony of hyenas maintained at the Field Station for Behavioral Research in the hills above the Berkeley campus, and close coordination with field researchers, we (this is a joint project with Professor Paul Licht) have been pursuing a variety of questions concerning, e.g., the role of naturally circulating androgens on sexual differentiation and behavior in female and male mammals.

Graduate students working with me have studied aspects of vertebrate behavior in a variety of species (e.g., kangaroo rats, woodrats, grasshopper mice, ground squirrels and, occasionally, hyenas) in both field and laboratory settings. These studies have sometimes been of a purely behavioral nature, while on other occasions, they have involved neural and/or hormonal substrates of behavior.

Selected Publications

Drea, C., J. Hawk, and S. E. Glickman. 1996. Aggression decreases as play increases in infant spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta): Preparation for joining the clan. Anim. Behav. 51:1323-1336.

Forger, N. G., L. G. Frank, S. M. Breedlove, and S. E. Glickman. 1996. Sexual dimorphism of perineal muscles and motoneurons in spotted hyenas. J. Comp. Neurol. 375:333-343.

Jenks, S. M., M. Weldele, L. G. Frank, and Glickman, S. E. 1995. Acquisition of matrilineal rank in captive spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta): Emergence of a natural social system in peer-reared animals and their offspring. Anim. Behav. 50:893-904.

Frank, L. G., M. L. Weldele, and S. E. Glickman. 1995. Costs of masculinization. Nature 377:584-585.

Glickman, S. E., L. G. Frank, K. E. Holekamp, L. Smale, and P. Licht. 1993. Costs and benefits of "androgenization" in the female spotted hyena: The natural selection of physiological mechanisms. In Perspectives in ethology: Behaviour and evolution, ed. P. P. G. Bateson, P. H. Klopfer, and N. S. Thompson, 10:87-117. New York: Plenum Press.