We had a great semester of engagement with lots of Cornell undergraduates this Spring! In addition to the many less formal forms of instruction and mentoring to which everybody contributes, people from our group who were involved in official teaching and advising this semester included: Stepfanie Aguillion: Stepfanie led the…
Postdoc Dave Toews provides some perspective in a “News and Views” article in the journal Molecular Ecology on new behavioral research in the white-throated sparrow conducgted by Sara Lipshutz (in Elizabeth Derryberry’s lab at Tulane), which compared bioacoustic variation across a contact zone between two white-throated sparrow subspecies. White-throated sparrows…
Leo’s paper in Science Advances is getting lots of really great press coverage, notably this article and accompanying video by James Gorman in the New York Times, this post for Forbes by the anonymous but well regarded blogger GrrlScientist, and coverage on Spanish and Portuguese media though collaborators in Argentina…
A paper on a project led by Leo Campagna and involving collaborators from the USA, Brazil, and Argentina is out today in Science Advances. This paper shows how a small number of genes that control plumage traits have been under repeated selection (probably via sexual selection) to produce the amazing…
Postdoc Dave Toews recently published a paper in the Journal of Avian Biology on why some warblers might not nest further into the northwest; All About Birds has a write-up on the work here. Dave shows that there is likely suitable habitat for several wood warbler species at high latitudes in…
The Magic School Bus — the science education television show — is getting a reboot, and grad student Jake Berv (maybe the kid with the red hat in the image here???) contributed substantial scientific feedback to the script for one of the forthcoming episodes. Look for Jake’s name in the…
Petra jumped over the final obstacle towards her PhD by passing her oral review with ease — in fact it was a fun discussion about her science and discoveries on her swamp sparrow system through which Petra has discovered the genes involved in this special case of rapid adaptation to…
Irby just returned from a very fun week-long tour of the Galapagos for Lab of Ornithology members that was run by our long-term colleague Fausto Rodriguez of Galapagos Best. Among the special sightings was an aggressive face-off between a large male tortoise and a large male land iguana (testosterone +…
Grad student Petra Deane-Coe presented her dissertation seminar at the EEB departmental seminar slot on April 24th. The title of her talk was “Genomic signatures of recent adaptive divergence in the swamp sparrow (Melospiza georgiana)” and her seminar itself was a model of clarity and polished presentation, on top of…
Congratulations to Nick Mason for being recognized as a recipient of the Stephen and Margaret Russell Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. This award celebrates those “who have demonstrated their devotion to teaching, where teaching is understood to include classroom presence, preparation and administration, student counseling…
This semester a bunch of us are involved in the 5th offering of the Galapagos curriculum for Cornell undergraduates, including a really wonderful voyage through the archipelago over Spring Break. Course leaders include Stepfanie Aguillon who is teaching the associated Freshman Writing Seminar, Natalie Hoffmeister who is teaching the Evolutionary…
Congratulations to grad student Nick Mason for being awarded a competitive NSF postdoctoral fellowship! This award will support Nick and his research starting in January 2018 as he transitions to working at UC Berkeley with ornithologist Raurie Bowie and others. The only down-side is that we will sorely miss Nick…
Leo Campagna was the featured presenter at the venerable Nuttall Ornithological Club’s April meeting in Cambridge, MA. His talk “The genetic basis of plumage differences in the rapid capuchino seedeater radiation” summarized results from the last few years of work on those birds. His study has identified key areas of…
Postdoc Dave Toews and lab alum Dr. Andrea Townsend (now a professor at Hamilton College) both gave plenary talks at Massachusetts Audubon “Birders” meeting in Boston this past weekend. The theme of this year was “warblers” and Dave discussed his research on hybridization in yellow-rumped as well as golden-winged and…
This blog has a great write-up on Liz, who created many wonderful illustrations for our lab’s scientific papers when she was here last year as a Bartel’s artist, and who is now back for a repeat performance as the instructor for the art class that forms a core part of…
Spurred by several exciting findings in warblers and canaries, current lab members Dave Toews and Natalie Hoffmeister, and lab alum Scott Taylor, reviewed what is known about the evolution and genetics of carotenoid processing in animals in a paper just published in Trends in Genetics. Animals cannot synthesize carotenoids and…
Graduate student Nick Mason recently published a paper with lead author Cissy Ballen to examine the effects of a campus support program for underrepresented minorities, first-generation students, and women in biology: the Biology Scholars Program (BSP) at Cornell. Together, Cissy and Nick found evidence of a disparity in preparedness among…
Postdocs Jen Walsh and David Toews and Research Associate Leo Campagna are all currently presenting posters and talks at the Gordon Speciation Conference in Tuscany. They were also invited to a pre-conference seminar highlighting cool young investigators. This small conference, with approximately 120 attendees, is focused on the frontiers of…
Postdoc Jen Walsh and collaborators recently published a paper in Molecular Ecology investigating the genetic structure of the Saltmarsh-Nelson’s sparrow subspecies complex. Using a reduced representation sequencing approach coupled with morphological data, this study offers the first comprehensive view into subspecies variation within Saltmarsh and Nelson’s sparrows. The authors found…
Postdoc Jen Walsh and collaborators recently published a paper in Conservation Genetics investigating the temporal stability of the Saltmarsh-Nelson’s sparrow hybrid zone. By comparing genetic, morphological, and survey data from the same sites from two time periods (1998 and 2013), this study finds that Nelson’s Sparrows are moving further south…