Monday, August 20, 2018

Just a Happy Lil Manakin

Photo credit Dan Albrecht-Mallinger

Cheers to Cuba Cuba

If you've sought out this post specifically, let me say first of all: Thank you for helping me with this project! I couldn't appreciate your aid more; you're helping me to do incredible work.
If you're confused, here's the scoop: I worked at Cuba Cuba this summer, and they kindly offered to hold a fundraiser for me on Tuesday, August 21 of 2018. This is absolutely incredible of them! Since it's a bit of an unconventional event, I want to make sure that anyone who is curious or concerned can find out exactly where their donation is going.
Research is expensive. There's airfare, equipment costs, lodging, transportation, and a whole host of other items that need addressing. I am mainly supported by the Wyoming Research Scholars Program, a competitive grant that helps undergraduate students establish their own name in various fields of research. While I am very grateful to the WRSP, no one grant can cover everything! This is where your help from the fundraiser comes in.
As of right now, I do not know exactly where your funds will be going within my project. However, I can narrow it down quite a bit: These funds will most likely go towards airfare to Alaska, where I will be presenting my research at the annual American Ornithological Society conference, or towards field equipment, such as muck boots and waterproofing for cameras and audio equipment. I will be updating this site once I know exactly where those funds are going, and keeping good records of those.
The main reason I created this site was to publicly specify where your donation has gone. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to email me at the address below. Thanks again to Cuba Cuba for their support, and thank you, reader, for your help!

Cheers,
Josephine



Helpful links:
Cuba Cuba website http://www.cubacubasandwicheria.com/
Wyoming Research Scholars Program http://www.uwyo.edu/wrsp/
American Ornithological Society http://www.uwyo.edu/wrsp/
AOS Conference http://www.americanornithology.org/upcoming-meetings

Poster from the Undergraduate Research Symposium 2018

If you'd like a better-resolution PDF of this, please email me and I'll happily send you one!

Cheers,
Josephine

Brief Overview: RCMA Project

Greetings! This post will provide a brief summary of my project, how I got to this point, and where it's headed from here. Enjoy!
I began working with Dan Albrecht-Mallinger, a graduate student at the University of Wyoming, in the fall of 2017. He has been working with C. mentalis for several years at various lek sites in Panama. Using data gathered by him, Camilo Alfonso (another grad student in Panama), and other Tarwater lab members, I've been assessing whether or not these birds have an individual identity that can be derived from their calls and songs alone.
The recordings are of males at lek, which is the name for a site where multiple males gather regularly to display and perch. By distilling their calls into numerical components-- duration, frequency, et cetera-- I hope to address the question of whether we as scientists can determine individual identity based on call. This would give us invaluable insight into the population of C. mentalis across the Isthmus of Panama, and since these birds are very vulnerable to climate change, monitoring changes in their population can help us understand the processes and effects of a rapidly changing environment. So far, I've only been able to address the duration of one particular call. The results are VERY promising! They indicate a distinct difference between individuals. See the image post "Poster from the Undergraduate Research Symposium 2018" for more on this early work. I'm working on other calls, other variables, and the predictability of the difference, and soon I'll know which call is the most indicative of individual identity.
In January I will be traveling to Panama to perform an experiment of my own: We know the birds express an identity in their call, but can they themselves distinguish between other individuals? To address this, I will be recording and playing back the distinctive call of a neighboring male and that of a foreign male and measuring the aggression response. Hypothetically, the male should react more aggressively to a male it doesn't know at all than to a male it is familiar with. In addition, I will be taking recordings of vocalizations at this time to explore how ambient noise, specifically highway traffic, impacts the calls of these birds.
Hopefully I'll be able to make some more detailed posts in time. I'm so thrilled to be doing this work!

Cheers,
Josephine



Helpful links:
Laramie site for Dan A-M http://engagelaramiescience.weebly.com/
University of Wyoming http://www.uwyo.edu/
Tarwater lab site https://www.tarwaterlab.com/

Salutation

Hello all! Thank you so much for visiting! I'm an undergraduate member of the Tarwater lab and the Wyoming Research Scholars Program at the University of Wyoming. I'll be using this blog for important updates regarding my research work. Currently, I'm working with red-capped manakins (Ceratopipra mentalis), focusing on bioacoustic analysis to understand the birds' ability to recognize individuals of their own species. 
If you're here out of sheer intrigue, check out the post "Brief Overview: RCMA Project". It'll tell you more about the birds and what I hope to learn from them.
If you're here because of the Cuba Cuba fundraiser, welcome and thank you for your support! Check out "Cheers to Cuba Cuba" to learn more about where your money is going and how it helps my project.
I hope you enjoy these wonderful creatures as much as I do!

Cheers,
Josephine



Helpful links:
Tarwater lab https://www.tarwaterlab.com/ 
Wyoming Research Scholars Program http://www.uwyo.edu/wrsp/ 
University of Wyoming http://www.uwyo.edu/