Lab News and Updates

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2022
October 2022: Congratulations to Billi Krochuk, MSc, who successfully defended her thesis, "Multiple metrics of community structure and beta diversity inform investigations of community assembly in two Afromontane systems."  


September 2022: Thanks to all the amazing members of our Neotropical Avian Team, who assembled in Vancouver to participate in our CSEE working group!


September 2022: A big welcome to Karina Torres, who is beginning her PhD at UBC Zoology, joining the Jankowski and Aviles labs!

August 2022: Congratulations to Rory Macklin, who presented a poster at his first ESA conference! "Competition through niche compression? Citizen-science data demonstrates Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) suppress occupancy probability of Chestnut-backed Chickadees (Poecile rufescens)."

         




  June 2022 - AOS conference in Puerto Rico!

May 2022: Congratulations to Mannfred Boehm and his excellent work published in Ecology and Evolution, "Floral phenology of an Andean bellflower and pollination by buff-tailed sicklebill hummingbird," with co-authors David Guevara-Apaza, Jill Jankowski and Quentin Cronk.
 



February 2022: Mannfred Boehm published this fantastic paper in The American Naturalist, "Plant-Pollinator Specialization: Origin and Measurement of Curvature," with co-authors Jill Jankowski and Quentin Cronk!



January 2022: A big welcome to our newest lab member, Rory Macklin, who is starting his Master's program in UBC Zoology!
2021
2020
November 2020: Congratualations to Billi Krochuk for her publication in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, "The large communal nests of sociable weavers provide year-round insulated refuge for weavers and pygmy falcons." Check out the paper online here!
Image of Sociable Weaver colony in Tswalu Kalahari ,  South Africa. Nests occupied by pygmy falcons on the right
(Figure 1, Lowney et al. 2020).



August 2020: North American Ornithological Conference (NAOC VII) - Online! Jill participated in a symposium, "Predicting Bird Distributions under Global Change." Thanks to Maggie MacPherson for organizing this outstanding symposium!


August 2020: Big congratulations to Billi Krochuk and Santiago David!

Billi Krochuk received a student grant from the Animal Behavior Society and an E. Alexander Bergstrom Memorial Research Award from the Association of Field Ornithologists!

Santiago David is the recipient of this year's Pamela and Alexander F. Skutch Award for his dissertation work!


June 2020: Our paper was accepted as a Review and Synthesis in Ecology Letters! "A meta-analysis of global avian survival across species and latitude." Congrats to Micah Scholer and co-authors Matt Strimas-Mackey and Jill Jankowski! Check it out here.
Relationship between apparent adult survival and latitude in the global meta analysis.


May 2020: Welcome to our new lab member, Billi Krochuk, who is starting her Master's thesis project with the birds of Equatorial Guinea! We're excited to collaborate with Biodiversity Initiative on this and future projects.


April 2020: Congratulations to Dr. Micah Scholer, who successfully defended his dissertation: "Life history and environmental correlates of survival rates in tropical birds." We're so proud of you, Micah! 

Congratulations to Jenny Munoz, PhD candidate, for passing her comprehensive exam!

Congratulations to Geoff Lau for his NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award!


February 2020: Lucas Pavan, a former Honour's student in the lab, published his thesis in the Journal of Field Ornithology, "Patterns of territorial space use by Shining Sunbeams (Aglaeactis cupripennis), a tropical montane hummingbird," with co-authors Jenny Hazlehurst and Jill Jankowski. This study documents how a high elevation hummingbird utilizes space within its territory. Check it out here.

This figure shows kernel density estimates
for four representative Shining Sunbeams.
2019


 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!



June 2019: AOS meeting in Anchorage, Alaska

Jill participated in a symposium with her presentation, "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!
2018
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...)


January 2018 - 2020: Colombia! PhD students Santiago David and Jenny Munoz will be working on their projects in different sites in Colombia. Santiago is studying high-elevation paramo communities, and Jenny is looking at mixed-species flocks across cloud forests.

2011 - 2017
A few nest predation events, caught on camera traps (Reconyx Hyperfire HC600) from Manu, Peru. Watch nest predation videos here!

    


Below left to right: Robinson lab reunion at Lago Otun, paramo frailejones in Parque Nacional Los Nevados, station Otun Quimbaya

RobinsonLabReunion  Fraelejones  LaPastora  PNN_Colombia

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

PantiacollaTeam    SanPedroTeam    PantiacollaLab    PantiacollaPlatform