 |
October 2019: Wilson Ornithological Society & Association of Field Ornithologists Joint Meeting! Beautiful Cape May, New Jersey was the setting for this year's WOS - AFO meeting. Plenty of migrating warblers and Monarch butterflies to be seen! Jill presented on a compilation of research from Monteverde and the plight of species endemic to the highland cloud forest of the Cordillera de Tilaran. |
| September 2019: A Big Welcome to our new lab member, Sarah Blake, who is starting her Master's thesis! |
| August
2019: Check out our preprint, "A meta-analysis of global avian survival
across species and latitude," a study led by Micah Scholer, with
co-authors Matt Strimas-Mackey and Jill Jankowski, which we've
submitted to Ecology Letters: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/805705v1 |
 Locations of 246 studies used in the avian survival meta-analysis. |
 |
August 2019: International Biogeography Society meeting, Quito, Ecuador Alessandro Catenazzi and Jill Jankowski led the symposium "From the Andes to the Amazon: Zoological elevation patterns from Manu National Park, Peru," with participating talks by Karolina Calderon, Gustavo Londono and Santiago David! |
| Ecuador!
July 2019 - What an incredible field season with Luis Camacho, Andrea
Haberkern, Jenny Munoz and others from the Aviles Lab! (Photos coming
soon!) |
 |
June 2019: AOS meeting in Anchorage, Alaska Jill participated in a symposium with a presentation on, "Life History Trait Variation Across a Tropical Elevational Gradient," with co-authors Micah Scholer and Gustavo Londono. |
May 2019: Congratulations to Micah Scholer (with co-authors Peter Arcese, Gustavo Londoņo, Martin Puterman and Jill Jankowski),
whose paper was accepted to Functional Ecology! The study analyzes the
relationship between adult survival and basal metabolic rate across 37
species of birds occurring from the Peruvian Amazon to the Andes.
Tropical birds living at high elevations show low metabolic rates, like
their lowland counterparts, but have lower survival, so they are kind
of an anomaly in the 'pace of life' continuum.
Check it out here! |
 Conceptual framework showing negative (red arrow) and positive (blue arrow) relationships among adult survival, metabolic rate, body size and elevation |
May 2019: Santiago David is a PhD candidate! Congratulations on your successful comprehensive exam! |
 Shining Sunbeam (Aglaeactis cupripennis) photo by Nicole LaRoche |
January 2019: Check out our paper published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology on the behavior and
diet of the Shining Sunbeam by co-authors Laura Cespedes, Lucas Pavan and Dr. Jenny Hazlehurst. This was a great team effort to
combine natural history data from two cloud forest sites across the high Andes! |
| November 2018: Our paper
on the natural history of the Peruvian Piedtail (led by Santiago
David) was published in the Journal of Field Ornithology! It describes
the breeding biology (nest, eggs, incubation patterns), elevational
distribution, habitat use and song of this 2.5-g
hummingbird. Patches of Guadua
bamboo found within intact forest are important for its breeding. This
hummingbird is an example of the "syndrome of rarity" in tropical birds: a Peruvian
endemic found in a narrow elevational range and within its range, a
habitat specialist. |
 Peruvian Piedtail (Phlogophilus harterti) on nest photo by Santiago David |
 Cerulean-capped Manakins (Lepidothrix coeruleocapilla)
(left: male, right: female) were among common species captured (and recaptured) to estimate longevity photo by Jill Jankowski |
How long do tropical birds live? September 2018: From our long-term mist-netting and banding efforts in Manu, we report minimum estimates of longevity for 20 species! Read about it here. And... more to come! |
| August 2018: IOC in Vancouver The Jankowski lab was well represented at the International Ornithological Conference! Micah Scholer presented on his dissertation chapter relating basal metabolic rates in birds to annual survival across elevations in the Andes. Jenny Munoz discussed variation in life history traits in tropical mixed-species flocks. Santiago David presented preliminary data on breeding strategies of high elevation specialists in the Colombian paramo. Great job everyone! |
 |
 This Centropogon flower is primarily
pollinated by the Buff-tailed Sicklebill (Eutoxeres condamini) |
March
2018: The 2600-m elevational gradient in Manu Biosphere Reserve harbors
one of the richest plant and bird communities in the world. There are
over 60 species of resident hummingbirds there. We are developing
projects to understand hummingbirds and plant-pollinator interactions
across this landscape. Find out more here.
|
| Bird lice! After incredible multi-year efforts of working in tropical forests, mist-netting birds, dusting our feather friends for ectoparasites, sorting through hundreds of samples, identifying the critters in the lab...we have our first bird-louse publication in the Biodiversity Data Journal. Amazing work! (Louse image [right] not actual size...) |  |
 |
During
2011-2013 we had teams of amazing and dedicated volunteers working in the Manu
Biosphere Reserve between August and December to gather data on the
nesting biology, metabolic physiology and distributions of bird species
across three stations at low (400m), middle (1300m) and high (2700m)
elevations. Find out more about this project here. Left: our San Pedro summer crew 2012. Below left to right: Pantiacolla team 2011; San Pedro team 2011; respirometry lab; state-of-the-art Pantiacolla research platform |
 |