Joanna E. Lambert

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Affiliate Professor of Zoology
At UW-Madison since 2004

Biological Anthropology

Affiliations: Department of Zoology; Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development Program; Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies

Research

My theoretical interests are in evolutionary and community ecology, with a taxonomic focus on the Order Primates, and an area focus of Africa.   Over the years, my research has developed along three complementary and synergistic trajectories, including: (i) nutritional ecology and the evolution and morphology of feeding biology; (ii) tropical community ecology (esp. primate-plant interactions) and (iii) conservation biology.  

Most recently, I have been exploring phenotypic plasticity in primate feeding behavior and anatomy and its implications at evolutionary and ecological scales.   At an evolutionary scale, I am currently evaluating the significance of within species plasticity for understanding the evolution of niches, feeding guilds and species richness.   At an ecological scale, I am exploring the implications of feeding plasticity for species coexistence and for tolerating anthropogenic stress.

Select Publications

• Lambert, J.E. (2007)
  Primate nutritional ecology: feeding biology and diet at ecological and evolutionary scales.   Primates in Perspective ( Campbell C, Fuentes A, MacKinnon KC, Panger M, and Bearder S, eds), Oxford University Press.
• Lambert, J.E. (2006)
  Seasonality, fallback strategies, and natural selection: a chimpanzee versus cercopithecoid model for interpreting the evolution of hominin diet.   In P. Ungar (ed): Evolution of Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable, University of Oxford Press (in press)
• Lambert, J.E. (2005)
  Competition, predation and the evolution of the cercopithecine cheek pouch: the case of Cercopithecus and Lophocebus .   American Journal of Physical Anthropology 126: 183-192.
• Lambert, J.E., and Chapman, C.A. (2005)
  The fate of primate dispersed seeds: deposition pattern, dispersal distance, and implications for conservation.   In: Forget, P-M. Lambert, JE, Hulme, P and Vander Wall, S.   Seed Fate: Predation, Dispersal and Seedling Establishment . CABI Press, pp 137-150.
• Lambert, J.E., Chapman, C.A., Wrangham R.W., and Conklin-Brittain, N.L. (2004)
  The hardness of mangabey and guenon foods: implications for the critical function of enamel thickness in exploiting fallback foods.   American Journal of Physical Anthropology 125: 363-368.

Contact

Office: 5317 Sewell Social Science Bldg
Office phone: ( 608) 265-1993
Email address: jelambert@wisc.edu

Links

http://www.anthropology.wisc.edu/lambert