Scientific mentors: celebrating John Hermanson on his retirement

As a professor, one is trying to excel in so many ways-- as a scientist, a data analyst, an academic scholar, a team manager, a teacher, a mentor, and for many of us, a parent. Each role could be its own full-time job, but we are expected to be excellent at all of them at … Continue reading Scientific mentors: celebrating John Hermanson on his retirement

Updates for January 2022

Some recent news from our lab: Former undergraduate lab member Emma Kline published her research project entitled "Habituation of common vampire bats to biologgers" in the open-access journal Royal Society Open Science. Emma showed that vampire bats habituate to proximity sensors if they are securely attached; however, they spend much of their time trying to … Continue reading Updates for January 2022

Podcast interview

There are a growing number of bat fanatics around the world! The new podcast "Give Bats a Podcast" interviews people who work in bat research and conservation. It can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc or here: https://linktr.ee/GiveBatsABreak I was featured on the latest episode "Episode 4: "Friends don't let friends die". We talk … Continue reading Podcast interview

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

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

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

Creating a lab culture that encourages innovation

Postdoc Simon Ripperger gave a presentation at our virtual lab meeting this week on “design thinking and social innovation”. Innovation is a critical driver for the success of most organizations. Many large companies spend significant time and money trying to understand how to develop cultures and incentive structures that foster innovation. Companies like Google do … Continue reading Creating a lab culture that encourages innovation

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?

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 grad student: Imran Razik

I’ve always been incredibly curious about the natural world and how it works, especially the animal kingdom. As a kid I would spend hours peeking under rocks, watching documentaries, and reading through wildlife encyclopedias. My entire childhood was focused around biological exploration, be it outside or in a book, so when I finally found out … Continue reading New grad student: Imran Razik