Behavioral Ecology Blog

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this very nice study by a fellow IB grad student and associate of the MVZ published this month in the Proceedings of the Royal Society London B. It represents the bulk of the dissertation research of Chris Clark, who has studied sound production in The Anna’s Hummingbird.
As [...]

[Read more →]

For the practicing scientist readers. you know that feeling of excitement you get when you read a paper sometimes… That “Holy Shit, this is one of the nicest papers I’ve read in a long time” feeling.. Well hold on, cause if your interested in behavioral ecology, sexual selection, mate choice, birds, biology, ect, this paper [...]

[Read more →]

There is a cool paper in Evolution this month that demonstrates the power of natural selection. By Kleven, et. al. “Intraspecific Variation in Sperm Length is Negatively Related to Sperm Competition in Passerine Birds“
Abstract:

Spermatozoa are among the most diversified cells in the animal kingdom, but the underlying evolutionary forces affecting intraspecific variation in sperm morphology [...]

[Read more →]

So I obviously have to cover this story- as it comes from a friend and labmate- Lauryn Benedict.  A Nature News piece just covered the results (published: Benedict, L. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. doi: 10.1007/s00265-007-0524-x (2007). ) of a part of her thesis.  Anyway, here is a part of the story!

Birds that sing in harmonious duets [...]

[Read more →]

Welcome everybody to the 12th installment of Oekologie- a blog carnival dedicated to the sciences of ecology and the environment. This months edition is loaded with great posts from a diverse set of bloggers.. So here we go!
Jeremy starts us off with a post that describes the latest scare tactic to be implemented in religious [...]

[Read more →]

Just in case you have always wondered, “old” is not an insult in the bird world… Actually, multiple studies have not shown that old birds have a competitive advantage over younger birds when it comes to extrapair access to fertile females. The latest (and one of the best in my opinion) is a a study [...]

[Read more →]

Welcome to the 88th edition of the Tangled Bank, the best and longest running science blog-carnival out there. For the newbies, we blog about science, casting a wide net over the physical, social, and life sciences. Anybody is welcome to submit, so long as it is about science. This weeks posts come from as [...]

[Read more →]

Thanks Anne Marie

[Read more →]

Man, Point Reyes was AWESOME! First, we saw this Black Tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) while walking up to the Lighthouse. I spotted him sitting in the shade, then foraging on some dry grass. He was obviously used to people, as he just continued his business. He was pretty small and thin- maybe its a [...]

[Read more →]

[Read more →]