Welcome back Milene
We are pleased to welcome back Milene Gaiotti, a visiting researcher from the University of Brasilia, to continue her genetic work here on the extremely endangered Araripe manakin.
Category: Research
Grants to Grads
Grants to Grads: congratulations to graduate student Natalie Hoffmeister for a substantial travel award from the Einaudi Center for International Studies for her forthcoming pilot study of local adaptation in Argentinian seabirds, and similar congratulations to graduate student Stepfanie Aguillon for a substantial Peacock Award from the Garden Society of…
New paper on sparrow hybridization by postdoc Jen Walsh
New paper on sparrow hybridization by postdoc Jen Walsh: Jen just published a neat paper from her PhD work at UNH; study looks at the genetic interplay between hybridizing Saltmarsh and Nelson’s Sparrows and finds evidence for neutral diffusion of some regions; strong selection and local adaptation in other genomic…
Shawn Billerman to return to Cornell as a postdoc!
Shawn Billerman is the recipient of an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship and we are all accordingly very excited about his forthcoming return to Cornell! In the Fall Shawn will begin working here on the genomics of hybrids zones in the Great Plains, based in part on the CUMV’s large collection of…
NSF smiles upon us
NSF smiles upon us. In this era of 4% funding rates, we are particularly appreciative of having been awarded a significant grant from the National Science Foundation for a new study entitled “Quantifying genomic porosity in non-model radiations.” In addition to Irby and Leo Campagna (Leo was a prime mover…
Welcome to new postdoc Jennifer Walsh!
Welcome to Dr. Jennifer Walsh, a new postdoc based in our program at the Lab of Ornithology. Jen’s work on the genomics of hybridization, adaptation, and divergence in Nelson’s and Saltmarsh Sparrows is supported by a two-year NSF Fellowship she received to explore the evolutionary biology and conservation genomics of…
John Sullivan discovers and describes a new genus
John Sullivan discovers and describes a new genus. John is a research associate in the Cornell Museum of Vertebrates who has spent a lot of time in our lab over the years sequencing fish samples, and even more time in the field in many parts of Africa surveying freshwater fish…
Dispatch in Current Biology by Leo Campagna
Dispatch in Current Biology by Leo Campagna: A review of the work by Tuttle et al. (2016) Current Biology on the origin and possible fate of a fascinating supergene that determines the coloration and mating behavior of a widespread North American bird. Accompanying artwork is by Liz Fuller, a Bartels…
Nick Mason lands NSF DDIG grant!
Nick Mason lands NSF DDIG grant! Congratulations to Nick for being awarded $20K of research funding from the National Science Foundation in support of his dissertation project. Nick’s new grant is titled Integrative species delimitation, cryptic coloration, and climatic niche breadth in a widespread, recent radiation of songbirds.
David Toews awarded a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship!
Current postdoc David Toews just got the fantastic news that he has been awarded a two-year Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship! This very prestigious award from the Canadian government goes only to the very top Canadian scholars across all disciplines in science and medicine. We are very excited that David plans to…
Scott wins award at ASN conference
Congratulations to Scott Taylor for garnering the Don Abbott Postdoctoral Research Award for an outstanding contributed presentation (talk or poster) by a current postdoc at the American Society of Naturalists meeting in mid-January. As seen in this photo, a widespread power failure required Scott to gave his talk on the…
Undergrad field course leads to publication in PLOS
Congratulations to course organizers/leaders Ben Freeman and Alexa Class Freeman, and to the student co-authors, for the first of several scientific papers arising out of their Spring 2015 Advanced Tropical Ornithology course. Back at the curriculum review stage there was some healthy push-back when peer-reviewed student publications were suggested as…
Postdocs Scott and Leo in Science on Avian Supergenes
Postdocs Scott Taylor and Leo Campagna have a substantial commentary appearing in this week’s issue of Science (!) on avian supergenes, as exemplified by recent studies of ruffs and white-throated sparrows. Read it here: TaylorCampagnaScienceAvianSupergenes
Congratulations to Natalie for EEB presentation award
Congratulations to grad student Natalie Hofmeister for winning the first-year award for best presentation at the 40th annual Cornell EEB research symposium. Natalie talked about her MS project on Environmental fluctuations influence the evolution of the glucocorticoid receptor in African starlings.
Ben Freeman in AmNat on elevational zonation
Grad Student Ben Freeman, a member of our lab group who is advised by John Fitzpatrick, has a new paper out in American Naturalist entitled Competitive interactions upon secondary contact drive elevational divergence in tropical birds. The popular summary from the AmNat site: Why do related tropical montane birds live…
Emma et al. make the cover of Evolution
Congrats to Emma, Dan, and Mike for having their study (and their really angry-looking fairy-wren) featured on the most recent cover of Evolution! Greig, E. I., Baldassarre, D. T. and Webster, M. S. (2015), Differential rates of phenotypic introgression are associated with male behavioral responses to multiple signals. Evolution, 69:…
Lots of great press for Jake’s Nature paper!
Here is just a small sample of links to third-party commentaries and articles on Jake’s avian phylogeny study: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15638.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/07/us-science-birds-idUSKCN0S124U20151007 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15638.html http://www.voanews.com/content/scientists-unveil-comprehensive-bird-family-tree/2995915.html
Congrats to Jake Berv for his major paper in Nature on avian relationships!
Congratulations to grad student Jake Berv and his co-authors for their important paper on the avian tree of life, which came out this week in Nature! The paper is open-access and the link is here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15697.html A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing Although reconstruction of…
Scott Taylor talks at Smithsonian
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Seminar: Scott was in Washington DC this Friday to give a seminar as part of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Seminar Series. His seminar, titled “Chickadees and climate change: Ecological and evolutionary insights from common backyard birds” highlighted some of the work he has been doing…
Leo’s Molecular Ecology Cover
Congrats to postdoc Leo Campagna for making the cover of Molecular Ecology with his most recent research paper on seedeaters!