Stepfanie on dispersal genomics at Brazil Evolution conference: grad student Stepfanie Aguillon just presented her work on the dispersal genomics of Florida Scrub-jays at the Evolution meeting in Brazil. This project was a robust ‘rotation’ endeavor that Stepfanie motivated during this first year for her at Cornell: Title: Genomic consequences…
These birds aren’t as different as they appear …. the first in our lab group’s series of talks at the Evolution meeting in Brazil:
Grad student Stepfanie Aguillon has a new paper out that is an extension of her MS research with Rene Duckworth: Duckworth, R.A. and S.M. Aguillon. 2015. Eco-evolutionary dynamics: investigating multiple causal pathways linking changes in behavior, population density and natural selection. Journal of Ornithology. Abstract: Correlations between population density, natural…
Katie Wagner wins the Dobzhansky Prize! Warmest of congratulations to lab group alumna Dr. Katie Wagner for being recognized at the highest level by her community of scientific colleagues. The Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize is awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution “to recognize the accomplishments and future…
Scott Taylor accepts tenure-track job at U. Colorado!: Warmest of congratulations to Scott for finalizing his future professioral appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder — a strong department in a great place to call home. Both Scott…
Petra is busy in the field… Grad student Petra Deane is in the midst of a multi-part road-trip to capture and sample Swamp Sparrows as part of her PhD project on the genomics of that complex. This image is of a bird she caught and banded yesterday:
Redpolls hit the news, part III … Nick and Scott’s redpoll study has been available for a while in Molecular Ecology’s pre-publication website and it has garnered an impressive amount of outside attention, including coverage in the news section of Science (http://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/17_april_2015?pg=44#pg44), and various popular media outlets and blogs like…
Redpoll study hits the news, part I… The paper on redpoll genomics and transcriptomics by grad Nick Mason and postdoc Scott Taylor is now published in Molecular Ecology: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.13140/abstract
Redpoll study hits the news, part II… Nick and Scott’s redpoll paper was paired with a nice commentary piece by Jan Lifjeld at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.13244/full … “… Mason & Taylor (2015), using a large data set of genomewide SNPs, verify that [the redpolls] all belong to a single gene pool with…
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 David Toews is in the field capturing Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers (like these two which he captured in the very same mist-net). These species hybridize extensively; our goal in this study is to gain a much better understanding of how this ongoing hybridization is manifested in the genome-wide levels…
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.
A warm welcome to Minene, who is visiting the Cornell through September and working in our lab on paternity analyses. Milene is a PhD candidate at the Universidade de Brasilia (Brazil), where her dissertation project is on the social behavior, evolution, and conservation of a (very cool! and beautiful!) endangered…
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.
Grad student Ben Freeman and postdoc Alexa Class are in the final week of teaching Cornell’s first-ever Advanced Tropical Ornithology course this semester to a group of juniors and seniors, including a very successful expedition to Costa Rica over Spring Break where the students conducted a series of robust independent…