News

Chickadee hybridization research featured in Scientific American!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 22:19:09 +0000

Chickadee hybridization research featured in Scientific American! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 11/13/2024 - 15:19

The October issue of Scientific American featured a story about chickadee hybridization by Rebecca Heisman that highlighted ongoing work in the lab:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hybrid-chickadees-reveal-how-species-boundaries-can-shift-and-blur/

Very cool to see work from the lab and conducted by our close collaborators featured in the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. Scientific American has been print since 1845!

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Past and present lab members attend the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 02:38:10 +0000

Past and present lab members attend the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/01/2024 - 20:38

Past and present members of the lab recetly attended the 3rd joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Montreal.

Sheela received an American Society of Naturalists Early Career Award and gave an excellent plenary talk. Haley and Kathryn organized a symposium on species interactions and climate change. Haley presented her recent work on chickadee aggression in Colorado, Jay presented recent work on the genetics of female color polymorphism in white-necked jacobins, and Danny presented new postdoc work on Darwin's finch evolution in response to vampire flies. Scott also presented an update on the lab's chickadee hybridization work.

It was a busy meeting and great to catch up with everyone!

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Scott discussed the Boulder Chickadee Study on How on Earth!

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:28:04 +0000

Scott discussed the Boulder Chickadee Study on How on Earth! Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/01/2024 - 18:28

Scott recently discussed the Boulder Chickadee Study with Host Susan Moran from How on Earth, the KGNU Science Show. Listen here!

https://howonearthradio.org/archives/9639

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The 2024 summer field season comes to a close

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:45:43 +0000

The 2024 summer field season comes to a close Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 07/14/2024 - 18:45

Last week marked the final nestling banding of the 2024 Boulder Chickadee Study field season wrapping the 6th year of the study. The team of Will, Sara, Olivia, Ajay, Nikki, Blake, and Sage counted 464 eggs, banded 431 nestlings, and 98 new adults. 32 birds previously banded here in Boulder County were recaptured (with some getting new color bands this season) for a total 561 chickadees handled during the season. Nikki also monitored multiple chickadee nests with nest cams and the data from those will be examined during the fall semester.

The completion of the 6th year of the Boulder Chickadee Study makes it eligible for long-term study funding from the National Science Foundation and Scott will be working on that grant in the coming weeks.

Will also completed his first solo PhD field season sampling house wrens across Colorado and Nebraska collecting blood samples from 87 house wrens and travelling over 2000 miles as he attempts to better define the region of contact between the eastern and western subspecies. He also sampled a number of yellow breasted chats for a previous Taylor Lab undergraduate student, Johanna Beam, who is completing her PhD at Penn State University.

Congrats all on an excellent field season!

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Olivia publishes her honors thesis in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology!

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 19:38:08 +0000

Olivia publishes her honors thesis in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology! Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 07/13/2024 - 13:38

Congratulations to Olivia and her co-authors Kathryn, Angela, Harriet Leeson and Carrie Branch for publishing a recent paper in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. After initially embarking on her undergraduate career as a Violin Performance major, Olivia completed her EBIO degree and honors thesis in our lab last year. For Olivia, her transition from music to studying bird song was a natural decision that followed her love of music and more, importantly, her curiosity about its nature. Olivia and her co-authors found that mountain chickadees in Boulder County sing different songs than mountain chickadees in California, but that black-capped chickadees in Colorado do not sound different from black-capped chickadees elsewhere. This is a potential example of either reproductive or agonistic character displacement! More work will be required to determine which one, but the initial results are very exciting. Congrats Olivia!

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2024 field season updates!

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 04:55:35 +0000

2024 field season updates! Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 06/30/2024 - 22:55

The 2024 field season has been a busy one - here are some updates from members of the lab currently in the field:

Sara: It has been a wild and exciting field season so far! With the addition of our new nestboxes on flagstaff mountain it is gearing up to be the most nests the Boulder Chickadee Study has ever seen!

Haley: Haley is conducting a mate choice experiment to understand whether females use color pattern to differentiate between potential black-capped and mountain chickadee mates.

Sage: This field season I have gained surveying skills when observing chickadee provisioning habits and have greatly enjoyed assisting in bird banding!

Will: The field season has been great thus far, I have caught 87 house wrens and we have had record numbers of nests up at the MRS.

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Sheela is a double Early Career award winner!

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:10:25 +0000

Sheela is a double Early Career award winner! Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/26/2024 - 09:10

Congrats to Taylor Lab alum Dr. Sheela Turbek who just received TWO early career awards! Sheela is a 2024 awardee of the Early Career Research Award from the American Society of Naturalists as well as an Early Professionals Award from the American Ornithological Society. Sheela completed her PhD in the lab in 2021 and has since been working as a Research Scientist with the Bird Genoscape Project at Colorado State University.

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Georgy publishes in Current Biology!

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 16:53:36 +0000

Georgy publishes in Current Biology! Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/17/2024 - 10:53

Georgy's most recent work on the genetics of variation in spatial cognition in food-caching chickadees was just published in Current Biology. This work is the product of a collabroation with Dr. Valdimir Pravosudov and his lab at the University of Nevada Reno, with contributions from other lab members including Sara and Ajay. This paper is a significant advance from our prior work using 42 whole genomes. Here we use 162 whole genomes and a new high-quality mountain chickadee reference genome to thoroughly explore the genetic underpinnings of variation in spatial cognition in mountain chickadees.

CU Boulder Today article

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Additional research grants for Nikki and Will!

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 17:11:24 +0000

Additional research grants for Nikki and Will! Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/11/2024 - 11:11

The good news keeps coming! Nikki (Documenting responses to experimental and natural nest intrusions in two species of cavity-nesting chickadee) and Will (Using acoustic and genomic data to evaluate the taxonomic status of Northern Pygmy Owls) were recently notified that they will receive funding for their work from the Colorado Field Ornithologsists and Will is also receiving funds from the Western Field Ornithologists.

Congrats Nikki and Will!

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Sara is awarded a 2024 NSF GRFP!

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 17:15:10 +0000

Sara is awarded a 2024 NSF GRFP! Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/08/2024 - 11:15

Congrats to Sara Padula, a second-year PhD student in the lab, who was granted a 2024 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship! The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing full-time research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education. The GRFP provides three years of support over a five-year fellowship period for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant research achievements in STEM or STEM education.

Sara works on many different research projects in the lab: she is (1) investigating interspecific variation in spatial cognitive abilities and genetics between two closely related species of food-caching chickadee, (2) determining if signatures of selection in the black-capped chickadee genome occur around genes that have been experimentally associated with spatial cognition, (3) examining the interspecific differences in female preference for male body size in black-capped and mountain chickadees, and (4) testing if birds adjust the frequency (Hz) of their song in response to airplane noise. She also is a field technician on the Boulder Chickadee Study!

In addition to research in the lab, Sara has a passion for breaking down barriers for prospective scientists to get involved in research and get connected to career opportunities. To achieve this, she is a graduate student representative in. EBIO club is an on-campus organization that provides resources to EBIO students to get involved in research, learn about career opportunities, and get connected to undergrads, grad students, and professors in the EBIO department.

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