Our newest postdoctoral researcher May Dixon and her co-authors (Patty Jones, Mike Ryan, me, and Rachel Page) have a new paper entitled “Long-term memory in frog-eating bats” in the journal Current Biology. The frog-eating bat (or fringe-lipped bat) is an acoustic eavesdropping predator that learns and remembers the calls of different frogs and katydids. As … Continue reading New paper: Long-term memory in bats
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
New paper: “Forced proximity promotes the formation of enduring cooperative relationships in vampire bats”
The latest paper from our lab by Imran Razik, Bridget Brown, and I can be found here at Biology Letters. This plot shows the experimental design. Imran let female vampire bats groom each other (network on left), then randomly selected bats to house together in a small cage for one week (middle), and then let … Continue reading New paper: “Forced proximity promotes the formation of enduring cooperative relationships in vampire bats”
Lab updates March 2022
Imran Razik, Jorge Lopez Donado, Maddy Foote, Basti Stockmaier, May Dixon and I captured familiar and unfamiliar female vampire bats from several different sites to create three captive colonies in Panama.Imran, Jorge, and Maddy are currently in Panama conducting a long-term experiment on partner choice during relationship formation in vampire bats. Imran was awarded a Smithsonian … Continue reading Lab updates March 2022
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
New paper on convergence in the gut microbiomes of vampire bats
In this study led by recent PhD graduate Karthik Yarlagadda at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, we looked for evidence for social convergence in vampire bats that clustered, groomed, and shared food. Karthik used shotgun sequencing to measure the microbial similarity of samples from six zoos in the USA, a wild colony in Belize, and three … Continue reading New paper on convergence in the gut microbiomes of vampire bats
New paper on analyzing animal social networks
My former postdoc advisor, Damien Farine, and I have a new paper entitled Permutation tests for hypothesis testing with animal social network data: problems and potential solutions. There is some debate around the topic of using permutation tests for hypothesis-testing with network data, so I’ll write a bit about that here from my own perspective. My thoughts … Continue reading New paper on analyzing animal social networks
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
New paper on social foraging in vampire bats
Our latest paper entitled "Social foraging in vampire bats is predicted by long-term cooperative relationships" is out in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. This study has so far received press coverage at Science Magazine, CBS, Smithsonian Magazine, Reuters, Daily Mail, Science News, IFLScience, Popular Science, and several others. It was also featured on the Canadian … Continue reading New paper on social foraging in vampire bats
Gerry named as 2021 “outstanding new investigator” by Animal Behavior Society
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
Carter Lab 