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
Adoption in vampire bats
We have a new short note about nonkin adoption in vampire bats published in Royal Society Open Science. I never thought we would write a paper based on a single observation, but we have such interesting longitudinal data leading up to this event. Here's the story: One of the "facts" I often hear about vampire … Continue reading Adoption in vampire bats
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
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
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
Gleaning bats that can detect motionless prey still prefer moving katydids
New paper: Geipel* I, Kernan* CE, Litterer AS, Carter GG, Page RA, ter Hofstede HM. 2020. Predation risks of signalling and searching: bats prefer katydids in motion in Biology Letters. When I was a kid, I would throw tiny pebbles or bits of wood in the air when bats were foraging, and the bats would often … Continue reading Gleaning bats that can detect motionless prey still prefer moving katydids
Carter Lab 