The Animal Behavior Society awarded me with "Outstanding New Investigator" of 2021. I thank my students, peers, mentors, and collaborators who generously nominated me. We often highlight individuals, but all the work I've done has been in collaboration with students, peer collaborators, and mentors. This award was almost entirely due to the support I've received … Continue reading Gerry named as 2021 “outstanding new investigator” by Animal Behavior Society
Category: News
New paper on social rank in female vampire bats
MSc student Rachel Crisp, Laurent Brent, and I published a paper today in Royal Society Open Science, entitled "Social dominance and cooperation in female vampire bats" We did this study because, although I've worked on cooperation in female vampire bats for years, but we had no idea about the role of competition among females. We … Continue reading New paper on social rank in female vampire bats
New paper: measuring ages of wild bats using an epigenetic clock (with general insights into aging)
Many people would like to know how to prolong human lifespan, so many well-funded labs are actively working on the biology of aging. One of the most interesting findings from this vast body of research is that aging is strongly correlated with DNA methylation. This work, pioneered by Steve Horvath, led to the creation of … Continue reading New paper: measuring ages of wild bats using an epigenetic clock (with general insights into aging)
Recent updates: March 2021
Soon-to-be-postdoc Basti Stockmaier just published a paper in Science entitled Infectious Diseases and Social Distancing in Nature. Our collaborator Liz Hobson just published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled Aggression heuristics underlie animal dominance hierarchies and provide evidence of group-level social information. I recently joined the Board of Directors at … Continue reading Recent updates: March 2021
Recent lab updates, January 2019
Some recent press focused on work by postdoc Simon Ripperger entitled "Today I learned bats are trendsetters in tracking tech", based partially on this nice interview. Along with other past and present members of the Farine Lab, I helped write a review paper just published in Journal of Animal Ecology: The importance of individual‐to‐society feedbacks … Continue reading Recent lab updates, January 2019
Tracking the impact of sickness on social networks in the field
Out latest paper, entitled "Tracking sickness effects on social encounters via continuous proximity sensing in wild vampire bats" is out in Behavioral Ecology (once again just in time for Halloween). This field experiment led by postdoc Simon Ripperger is the followup to a series of lab studies on sickness behavior led by grad student Basti … Continue reading Tracking the impact of sickness on social networks in the field
Do bats sniff out their roosts? Lessons for understanding the role of uncertainty in science
A common misunderstanding perpetuated in most grade schools is that science is about “facts”. Contrary to popular belief, working scientists don’t talk much about facts. They talk about questions, hypotheses, models, and possible experiments. They say things like, “Here’s how you could really demonstrate that” or “Here’s what we found” more often than “These are … Continue reading Do bats sniff out their roosts? Lessons for understanding the role of uncertainty in science
Presentations at 2020 Animal Behavior Society Virtual Meeting
The Animal Behavior Society had its online conference as a virtual meeting this year. I loved it! The talks were pre-recorded, so they were better in quality than normal talks (no public-speaking practice or performance required). I could watch every talk on my own schedule without missing any, and if I started to lose focus … Continue reading Presentations at 2020 Animal Behavior Society Virtual Meeting
New paper: Sick vampire bats make fewer contact calls to their groupmates
PhD Student Basti Stockmaier published his last empirical dissertation chapter entitled "Immune-challenged vampire bats produce fewer contact calls" in Biology Letters. He also presented a poster today at a virtual conference entitled "How do pathogens and parasites affect behaviour?". I've posted a copy of the poster below. The work was also featured in the New … Continue reading New paper: Sick vampire bats make fewer contact calls to their groupmates
New paper on bats using echolocation to identify each other
For echolocating bats, each bat is almost always producing biosonar pulses as it "looks" around. So when bats are flying or roosting in the same place, do they recognize the voices of all the bats nearby? Do they have an omnidirectional mental ‘image’ of who is around them at all times? https://youtu.be/3eFORbGoX_Y Here's a closeup … Continue reading New paper on bats using echolocation to identify each other
