New paper: Vampire bats that cooperate in the lab maintain their social networks in the wild

Here's the paper in Current Biology. The press coverage included PBS, CNN, NPR , BBC, Nature Magazine, Science Magazine, Science News, Popular Science, The Ohio State University, Cosmos Magazine, Wissenschaft, El Mundo, ZME Science, SciShow, and EurekaAlert Press release (video below). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeAiUBM18Cs Take home message: Halloween is a good day to publish a paper on … Continue reading New paper: Vampire bats that cooperate in the lab maintain their social networks in the wild

Latest paper suggests there are two kinds social grooming in vampire bats (and some other updates)

A recent paper from our group (Team Vampire 2017) suggests that vampire bats might perform two different kinds of social grooming. First, a focal vampire bat is more likely to start allogrooming a bat next to them right after grooming themselves. Imagine a cat in your lap that is licking itself and then starts licking … Continue reading Latest paper suggests there are two kinds social grooming in vampire bats (and some other updates)

New Course

I'm also now officially a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Can a captive-born vampire bat feed on a live animal?

In 2016 and 2017, we captured female vampire bats and then released them back into the wild almost two years later to track their wild association networks. During their time in captivity, 12 of the females gave birth to pups. Would these captive-born bats be able to survive in the wild? Jineth Berrío-Martínez conducted an experiment … Continue reading Can a captive-born vampire bat feed on a live animal?

Lab updates: July 2019

At the end of May, Rachelle Adams and I finished teaching the course "Tropical Behavioral Ecology and Evolution" in Panama. Each student worked on an individual research project and also wrote a blog post about another student's project. Tropical Behavioral Ecology and Evolution, May 2019 In June, students Imran Razik, Bridget Brown, and David Girbino … Continue reading Lab updates: July 2019

Lab updates: May 2019

PhD student Imran Razik was awarded both a Short-term Fellowship from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and a Student Research Grant from the Animal Behavior Society. He will be studying urinary oxytocin as a predictor of variation in grooming and food-sharing between both old (familiar) and new (unfamiliar) individuals. MSc student Bridget Brown was awarded … Continue reading Lab updates: May 2019

Proximity sensors, preprints, and grants

Simon Ripperger will be joining our team this summer in Panama. Simon recently published the first paper on his new method for sampling dynamic social networks of whole groups of bats in the field. The paper in Biology Letters is entitled "Proximity sensors on common noctule bats reveal evidence that mothers guide juveniles to roosts … Continue reading Proximity sensors, preprints, and grants

New paper on relatedness and social networks across different bats

Last year, I attended a symposium hosted by Peter Kappeler at the German Primate Center on the topic of "social complexity". A bunch of evolutionary and behavioral ecologists from different backgrounds got together to argue about stuff like 'How should we define social complexity?', 'Is the brain size of a species a good of measure … Continue reading New paper on relatedness and social networks across different bats

Nov 2018 updates

Events: Nov 7-9 at Ohio State University: Modeling and Analysis of Dynamic Social Networks (I'm giving the first talk at 1pm) Nov 8 Seminar: "Wireless tracking sensor network give novel insights into the (social) life of bats" by Simon Ripperger. (1:00–2:00pm, Room 110, Orton Hall, The Ohio State University). Simon is visiting my lab this … Continue reading Nov 2018 updates

Updates: June 2018

A few updates: I'm delighted to announce my first three graduate students at Ohio State University: Bridget Brown, Theresa Chen, and Imran Razik. Read more about them here. Theresa and Imran have both won competitive fellowships from the university. We published a study showing that younger vampire bats are more exploratory than adults. They are far … Continue reading Updates: June 2018