We have a new paper, “Thinking small: Next-generation sensor networks close the size gap in vertebrate biologging”, out in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Ohio State News did a great article summarizing the work.
Congratulations to Bridget Brown, who successfully defended her MSc thesis, “Do bats use olfactory cues to find roosts?”. Bridget is interested in continuing on with her PhD to work at the intersection of bat behavior and conservation.
We also posted a preprint for an article entitled “Sickness behaviour reduces network centrality in wild vampire bats”. However, the figures are a bit low resolution, so you can also use this temporary link to read this preprint version.
Due to the pandemic, we’ve canceled my field course in May and our field season for this summer, but PhD students Imran Razik and Theresa Chen are still analysing the data they collected last year. Our undergraduates are scoring videos of vampire bat interactions with the opportunity to develop their own independent projects using these data next fall. Simon and I are still writing up papers from data we collected in Panama from 2015-2017.
Although it’s not 100% official yet, our big NSF grant proposal entitled “Collaborative Research: Formation of new cooperative relationships in vampire bats – individual traits, partner choice, and network dynamics” (in collaboration with Liz Hobson and Ian Hamilton) was recommended by our NSF program officer, which means there’s something like a >99% chance it will be funded.
Now here’s a video of white-winged vampire bats being cute (these are long-term captive bats, you should never handle wild bats without gloves)…
Carter Lab 