McMaster evolutionary ecologist chats with The Spectator //

Jonathan Pruitt presents the inaugural Discover Science series lecture tonight at McMaster Innovation Park

actually have proposals right now to work with human social groups, but you know, rather In his evolution as a young man, than the response variable being Jonathan Pruitt felt the urge to that everyone dies, it’s whether travel, and talk about his experiences, the group performs well or not, and teach. whether there are positive group He feels like he has combined benefits, or if they experience all of these in his young career as stress, things of that nature.

an academic. Q: The title of your talk is “Animal Pruitt is an evolutionary ecologist Leadership Mightn’t Be Such at McMaster University, A Good Idea.” So why mightn’t it named a Canada 150 Research not be?

Chair in Biological Dystopias last A: We like to romanticize the spring, at just 32 years old. notion of animal leadership because He studies how traits of animal leadership is so common in societies impact their survival, our society, but it is absent from a from ants to lizards, wasps and lot of societies, not because those spiders. His work includes creating societies haven’t had the opportunity experimental societies to see to evolve leadership, it just which attributes contribute toward hasn’t been advantageous success or extinction. for Pruitt presents the inaugural them to. And right Discover Science series lecture now, politically, Thursday night, Sept. 27, titled it’s easy to say “Animal Leadership Mightn’t Be leadership might Such A Good Idea,” at McMaster not be a good idea Innovation Park, 175 Longwood after all, because Rd. S., in Room 1AB. we can see, without The event will feature a brief venturing too talk from Pruitt and he will be far, some leaders interviewed on stage by McMaster’s are not such great Joe Kim, a professor in psychology, fits for the people neuroscience and behaviour. they lead. Q: Is there an example of animals The Spectator asked Pruitt leading their followers to about his road travelled from destructive ends?

Orlando to Hamilton, his research, A: Absolutely. An elephant and also, if the president population in an area that is of his native country was an animal, urbanizing might be displaced to what kind would he be? a conservation reserve, in an Questions and answers have effort to save them. But the leading been edited for length. matriarch of the herd will Jon Wells: Do you think your guide the herd hundreds of miles research studying animal societies, back to where they came from, and how they survive or fail, and along the way often times could be transferable to people? they are killed by human development Jonathan Pruitt: I would love that has emerged between to work with people as well. I their new spot and where they once were. So there’s a mismatch between the knowledge of the matriarch and the reality the herd now find themselves in: their world has changed.

Q: Do you ever watch animated movies like “A Bug’s Life,” and what do you think about movies like that in terms of how they portray animal behaviour?

A: Those movies are mostly terrible at conveying biology but are good ambassadors for getting people to have a soft spot for squishy insects. I mean, the notion that there are these noble queen (ants), wearing tiaras and whatnot, when in reality a queen lives in a hole in the ground and never sees the light of day, and basically produces offspring every one to eight minutes for the rest of her life, and other insects vomit into her mouth to feed her — I mean it’s not very queenly. The reality of biology is pretty brutal.

Q: You grew up in Florida but have roots in Ontario?

A: My mom is Acadian French, from a tiny community outside Sault Ste. Marie. My dad is a Lithuanian Jew. And so I am a weird mutt. I grew up outside of Orlando in an agricultural community, with maybe 5,000 people, surrounded by orange groves. My mom was a guidance counsellor there to educate the youth of the farmers, and the migratory population that emerged there ... My biological father lives in northern Florida and raises goats. My connection with Ontario is that we cottaged in the summer outside of Sault Ste. Marie.

Q: In terms of animals and leadership, which animal do you Jonathan Pruitt is an evolutionary ecologist at McMaster University and a Canada 150 Research Chair.

think Donald Trump most resembles?

A: Trump is one of these incredibly proactive personality types that have been successful by ignoring adversity, ignoring the social climate around him. That is actually a coping style lots of animals do to extraordinary success. A reactive type tends to assess the social situation they are in, approach new problems slowly and adjust to the situation at hand. Both personality types tend to do pretty well in various environments.

Q: It sounded earlier, when you talked about animal leaders taking their followers to bad places, like you were drawing an allusion to Trump ...

A: During my talk I will dance very close to that anthropomorphic flame, and occasionally allow myself to be singed by it, but the reality is, I don’t think Donald Trump is a spider, or Justin Trudeau some kind of duck creature, but I think that describing animals with human terms sometimes allows you to communicate subtle context very swiftly.

Q: You studied at the University of Tennessee, and then the University of California, Davis, before joining McMaster. Are you evolutionarily oriented to warmer climes? Because winter is coming.

A: I have been secretly fantasizing about vanishing in February and March. I take a good chunk of the winter to research, I work mostly in the Southern Hemisphere — South Africa or Ecuador.

Q: What have you enjoyed most about your chosen career path?

A: I grew up quite poor, so the opportunity to see the world and experience the wild that’s left, that fills me with a sense of majesty in a way that few things can. I think people psychologically need to be instilled with a sense of majesty every so often, whether that happens when you are looking at stars, or if it happens when you are inside a church with giant stained glass windows, or you hear a great piece of music or see a beautiful piece of art, people need that. And I found a way to fulfil that need on a regular basis.

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“I don’t think Donald Trump is a spider, or Justin Trudeau some kind of duck creature, but I think that describing animals with human terms sometimes allows you to communicate subtle context very swiftly.”