Our first undergraduate genome is assembled… or since we study birds and not humans, maybe it is more correct to say that our first complete genome generated as part of an undergraduate thesis project is assembled. Congrats to Ben Van Doren, and thanks to Leo Campagna and Bronwyn Butcher, for…
Postdoc David Toews just had a nice commentary piece titled “A genomic guide to bird population history” published in Current Biology. From the Summary: “How species responded to the climatic oscillations during the past few million years is debated. A new study analyzing the genomes of 38 bird species finds…
Bittersweet congratulations to Yula Kapetanakos, who got her PhD in our lab last year and who has been working since then just down the hall as an Associate Producer in the Lab’s multimedia unit, largely on an incredible conservation story on the Philippine Eagle. We will be very sorry to…
Travelogue video from our Spring 2015 Galapagos courses for freshmen — these include a trip through the archipelago as well as intensive coverage of evolutionary biology (BioEE1780, 5 credits) and the humanities (through a writing course centered on the perspectives of different travelers on Galapagos, WRIT1430, 3 credits). Courses and…
Two members of our group–Postdoc Leo Campagna and PhD student Nick Mason–just returned from leading a special multi-day genomics course at the Universidad Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. Their course, taught in Spanish to a large and enthusiastic cadre of students and researchers, was an “Introducción a los…
Postdoc Scott Taylor has a new review article coming out in Trends in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology on how hybrid zones can serve as powerful windows on the ecological and evolutionary effects of climate change. Read the full paper here.
Irby just returned from the Galapagos after helping to lead the 2015 ‘Galapagos Curriculum’ for 12 Cornell freshmen, in partnership with grad students Nick Mason and Lina Arcila. As the students returned to campus, Irby stayed on to lead two very fun voyages around the archipelago for Lab of Ornithology…
Congrats to first-year grad student Stepfanie Aguillon for being awarded a research grant from the Wilson Ornithological Society in support of her exploration of the Northern Flicker hybrid zone using genomic tools.
David mentored the first author, a UBC undergraduate, on this project that used remote field recordings near an urban roost in Vancouver to estimate roost departure time. They found that northwestern crows seemed to maintain a semi-natural circadian rhythm in their roost departures, even with strong variation between days in…
Nick is back from Galapagos along with the 12 freshmen in our “Galapagos curriculum,” an 8-credit series of Humanities and Science courses that includes the Spring Break trip to the Galapagos. Irby carries on in Galapagos leading two back-to-back trips for Lab of Ornithology members.
Congratulations to Becca Brunner (former undergrad and more recently our jack-of-all-trades teacher, course developer, editor, etc. while also a MS student in the Webster Lab) for deciding to head west to Berkeley for her PhD studies starting this Fall!
Irby and Nick are spending the first week of April (i.e., Spring Break) in Galapagos along with the 12 Cornell freshmen enrolled in our two-course Galapagos curriculum. Boobies, tortoises, finches, penguins, iguanas, and much more await!
A warm advance welcome to Natalie, who will be joining our lab in the Fall as an incoming PhD student. Natalie is currently completing her MS at Columbia University, where she is working with lab group alumnus Dustin Rubenstein — as far as I can recall, Natalie therefore represents our…
Congratulations to Nick Mason for winning an American Society of Naturalists Student Research Fellowship!
Congratulations to grads Stepfanie Aguillon, Jake Berv, and Nick Mason, all of whom were awarded research grants from the CALS Mellon awards program in support of their different projects.
Nick Mason and Scott Taylor have an (I think) important new paper coming out in Molecular Ecology on the lack of genetic differentiation, but presence of gene expression differences, among redpoll finch “species.” The online-early version is here. Stay tuned for more posts on this study, complete with press releases.…
Irby and Leo will co-lead a new undergraduate seminar and field course entitled “Ecology and Conservation of Wildlife in the Neotropics” in Fall 2015. The course will meet throughout the Fall semester, and then have a two-week field learning component in wildlife-rich coastal Patagonia in January 2016. Students who want…
Congratulations to grads Stepfanie Aguillon and Jake Berv, who were both awarded significant travel grant to participate in NSF-supported workshops hosted by the Society of Systematic Biologists at this summer’s conference in Guaruja, Brazil.
We are enjoying a research visit by Dr. Luciano Calderón, who is a postdoctoral fellow at Justus Liebig University (Giessen, Germany) where he works with Dr. Petra Quillfeldt. Luciano is originally from Argentina, where he did his PhD on cormorant evolution under Dr. Pablo Tubaro at the Argentine Museum of…
Mason, N. A., & Burns, K. J. (2015). The effect of habitat and body size on the evolution of vocal displays in Thraupidae (tanagers), the largest family of songbirds. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 114, 38–551