Enjoy the slideshow! New paper published in The Auk, "Variation in nest characteristics and brooding patterns of female Black-throated Blue Warblers is associated with thermal cues". We tested the hypothesis that females adjust nest characteristics and brooding patterns in response to thermal variation during the nest-building and nestling stages. This work was conducted across a 2°C gradient at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire. Our findings suggest that thermal cues during nest building may be unreliable as predictors of future conditions for developing nestlings and also that females might favor their own self-maintenance and compromise nestling growth under adverse thermal conditions 🔗 Maria Smith was my undergraduate advisee at Cornell University. Maria is now a graduate student at Princeton University working with Christie Riehl. 
Enjoy the slideshow! New paper published in Behavioral Ecology, "Direct fitness benefits and kinship of social foraging groups in an Old World tropical babbler". We combined behavioral and molecular data to provide a first description of the social and genetic mating system of the grey-throated babbler (Stachyris nigriceps)--a resident of tropical submontane forests across Southeast Asia. Our findings highlight the importance of examining benefits of sociality for unrelated individuals that largely do not help and broaden the direct fitness benefits of group foraging beyond assumed survival benefits. 🔗 This was an exciting collaboration with Tom Martin's lab as part of their larger study on the life histories of the bird community at Kinabalu Park, in the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. This work was co-authored by Tom Martin, Juan Oteyza, Connor Armstad, and Rob Fleischer. 
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