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Nicole Creanza

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Nicole Creanza’s research targets three fundamental questions: (1) In what ways can learned behaviors change the course of genetic evolution? (2) How much information about evolutionary history persists in learned behaviors? (3) How do ecological factors, such as environmental and species interactions, affect the evolution of learned behaviors? Her lab addresses these questions by integrating the study of human linguistic and genetic variation, the evolution of learned birdsong in a genetic context, and theoretical and computational models of genetic and cultural evolution.

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Papers

Snyder KT, Loughran-Pierce A, Creanza N. (2026). Territoriality modulates the coevolution of cooperative breeding and female song in songbirds. Nature ecology & evolution

Snyder KT, Loughran-Pierce A, Creanza N. (2026). Publisher Correction: Territoriality modulates the coevolution of cooperative breeding and female song in songbirds. Nature ecology & evolution

Scartozzi AC, Wang Y, Coleman PL, Du'Mottuchi XL, Henechowicz TL, Gustavson DE, Petty LE, Highland HM, Creanza N, Magne CL, Gísladóttir RS, Cox NJ, Below JE, Nayak S, Gordon RL. (2026). Genome-wide investigation of prosody perception: evidence for shared genetic influences between speech rhythm, musical rhythm, and reading traits. HGG advances

Du'Mottuchi XL, Creanza N. (2025). The role of learned song in the evolution and speciation of Eastern and Spotted towhees. PLoS computational biology, 21(6)

Ben-Oren Y, Hovers E, Kolodny O, Creanza N. (2025). Cultural innovation is not only a product of cognition but also of cultural context. The Behavioral and brain sciences, (48)

Fogarty L, Kandler A, Creanza N, Feldman MW. (2024). Half a century of quantitative cultural evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(48)

Pichkar Y, Surowiec A, Creanza N. (2024). Genetic and linguistic comparisons reveal complex sex-biased transmission of language features. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(48)

Pichkar Y, Creanza N. (2023). Fine-scale cultural variation reinforces genetic structure in England. American journal of biological anthropology, 181(4)

Shuster KA, Yang TS, Snyder KT, Creanza N, Mitchell PK, Goodman LB, Grenier JK, Tataryn NM, Himmel LE, Gibson-Corley KN. (2023). ). Comparative medicine, 73(5)

Ben-Oren Y, Kolodny O, Creanza N. (2023). Cultural specialization as a double-edged sword: division into specialized guilds might promote cultural complexity at the cost of higher susceptibility to cultural loss. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 378(1872)

Anderson KA, Creanza N. (2023). A cultural evolutionary model of the interaction between parental beliefs and behaviors, with applications to vaccine hesitancy. Theoretical population biology, (152)

Anderson KM, Creanza N. (2023). Internal and external factors affecting vaccination coverage: Modeling the interactions between vaccine hesitancy, accessibility, and mandates. PLOS global public health, 3(10)

Ben-Oren Y, Strassberg SS, Hovers E, Kolodny O, Creanza N. (2023). Modelling effects of inter-group contact on links between population size and cultural complexity. Biology letters, 19(4)

Atkinson EG, Dalvie S, Pichkar Y, Kalungi A, Majara L, Stevenson A, Abebe T, Akena D, Alemayehu M, Ashaba FK, Atwoli L, Baker M, Chibnik LB, Creanza N, Daly MJ, Fekadu A, Gelaye B, Gichuru S, Injera WE, James R, Kariuki SM, Kigen G, Koen N, Koenen KC, Koenig Z, Kwobah E, Kyebuzibwa J, Musinguzi H, Mwema RM, Neale BM, Newman CP, Newton CRJC, Ongeri L, Ramachandran S, Ramesar R, Shiferaw W, Stein DJ, Stroud RE, Teferra S, Yohannes MT, Zingela Z, Martin AR, . (2022). Genetic structure correlates with ethnolinguistic diversity in eastern and southern Africa. American journal of human genetics, 109(9)

Niarchou M, Gustavson DE, Sathirapongsasuti JF, Anglada-Tort M, Eising E, Bell E, McArthur E, Straub P, , McAuley JD, Capra JA, Ullén F, Creanza N, Mosing MA, Hinds DA, Davis LK, Jacoby N, Gordon RL. (2022). Genome-wide association study of musical beat synchronization demonstrates high polygenicity. Nature human behaviour

Fogarty L, Creanza N. (2022). Cultural dynamics add multiple layers of complexity to behavioural genetics. The Behavioral and brain sciences, (45)

Hudson EJ, Creanza N. (2022). Mdeling how population size drives the evolution of birdsong, a functional cultural trait. Evolution; international journal of organic evolution

Snyder KT, Creanza N. (2021). Functional and evolutionary parallels between birdsong and human musicality. The Behavioral and brain sciences, (44)

Gordon RL, Ravignani A, Hyland Bruno J, Robinson CM, Scartozzi A, Embalabala R, Niarchou M, , Cox NJ, Creanza N. (2021). Linking the genomic signatures of human beat synchronization and learned song in birds. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 376(1835)

Chopoorian A, Pichkar Y, Creanza N. (2021). The Role of the Learner in the Cultural Evolution of Vocalizations. Frontiers in psychology, (12)

Rundstrom P, Creanza N. (2021). Song learning and plasticity in songbirds. Current opinion in neurobiology, (67)

Strassberg SS, Creanza N. (2021). Cultural evolution and prehistoric demography. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 376(1816)

Fogarty L, Creanza N, Feldman MW. (2019). The life history of learning: Demographic structure changes cultural outcomes. PLoS computational biology, 15(4)

Snyder KT, Creanza N. (2019). Polygyny is linked to accelerated birdsong evolution but not to larger song repertoires. Nature communications, 10(1)

Greenbaum G, Fogarty L, Colleran H, Berger-Tal O, Kolodny O, Creanza N. (2019). Are both necessity and opportunity the mothers of innovations?. The Behavioral and brain sciences, (42)

Surowiec A, Snyder KT, Creanza N. (2019). A worldwide view of matriliny: using cross-cultural analyses to shed light on human kinship systems. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 374(1780)

Carja O, Creanza N. (2019). The evolutionary advantage of cultural memory on heterogeneous contact networks. Theoretical population biology, (129)

Robinson CM, Snyder KT, Creanza N. (2019). Correlated evolution between repertoire size and song plasticity predicts that sexual selection on song promotes open-ended learning. eLife, (8)

Robinson CM, Creanza N. (2019). Species-level repertoire size predicts a correlation between individual song elaboration and reproductive success. Ecology and evolution, 9(14)

Creanza N. (2018). Predicting societal-level cultural change. Nature human behaviour, 2(8)

Snyder KT, Creanza N. (2018). Food-seeking behavior has complex evolutionary pressures in songbirds: Linking parental foraging to offspring sexual selection. The Behavioral and brain sciences, (42)

Altenberg L, Creanza N, Fogarty L, Hadany L, Kolodny O, Laland KN, Lehmann L, Otto SP, Rosenberg NA, Van Cleve J, Wakeley J. (2019). Some topics in theoretical population genetics: Editorial commentaries on a selection of Marc Feldman's TPB papers. Theoretical population biology, (129)

Sherriah AC, Devonish H, Thomas EAC, Creanza N. (2018). Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 373(1743)

Kolodny O, Feldman MW, Creanza N. (2018). Integrative studies of cultural evolution: crossing disciplinary boundaries to produce new insights. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 373(1743)

Fogarty L, Creanza N. (2017). The niche construction of cultural complexity: interactions between innovations, population size and the environment. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 372(1735)

Creanza N, Kolodny O, Feldman MW. (2017). Cultural evolutionary theory: How culture evolves and why it matters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(30)

Archuleta TL, Frazier MN, Monken AE, Kendall AK, Harp J, McCoy AJ, Creanza N, Jackson LP. (2017). Structure and evolution of ENTH and VHS/ENTH-like domains in tepsin. Traffic (Copenhagen, Denmark), 18(9)

Rathmann H, Reyes-Centeno H, Ghirotto S, Creanza N, Hanihara T, Harvati K. (2017). Reconstructing human population history from dental phenotypes. Scientific reports, 7(1)

Creanza N, Kolodny O, Feldman MW. (2017). Greater than the sum of its parts? Modelling population contact and interaction of cultural repertoires. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 14(130)

Kolodny O, Creanza N, Feldman MW. (2016). Game-Changing Innovations: How Culture Can Change the Parameters of Its Own Evolution and Induce Abrupt Cultural Shifts. PLoS computational biology, 12(12)

Creanza N, Feldman MW. (2016). Worldwide genetic and cultural change in human evolution. Current opinion in genetics & development, (41)

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