News

Sam, Nate, Eva, and the lab are awarded UROP funding!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 14 May 2025 00:13:26 +0000

Sam, Nate, Eva, and the lab are awarded UROP funding! Scott Anthony Taylor Tue, 05/13/2025 - 18:13

Congrats to Sam, Nate, and Eva for receiving individual UROP awards to support their summer research! All three are collecting data for their honors thesis projects. Sam will be studying pox virus in our local chickadee populations, Nate will be study incubation patterns in chickadees, and Eva will be studying variation in parental provisioning behavior. We're excited to see what they all find!

The lab also received UROP funding that will be used to continue the Boulder Chickadee Study.

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Chancellor Justin Schwartz and senior vice chancellor for research and innovation Massimo Ruzzene visit the MRS with Scott and Nancy Emery!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 07 May 2025 15:41:16 +0000

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Chancellor Justin Schwartz and senior vice chancellor for research and innovation Massimo Ruzzene visit the MRS with Scott and Nancy Emery! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 05/07/2025 - 09:41

Scott and Nancy Emery (PI of the Niwot Ridge LTER) recently took ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Chancellor Justin Schwartz and senior vice chancellor for research and innovation Massimo Ruzzene on a tour of the Mountain Research Station and Niwot Ridge. Thanks to Sammy Yevak, the lead Niwot Ridge LTER water technician, the group made it up to the tundra lab for a relatively warm and windless spring tour of Niwot Ridge!

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Jay publishes in Ecology on potential caterpillar mimicry by hummingbird chicks!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:35:37 +0000

Jay publishes in Ecology on potential caterpillar mimicry by hummingbird chicks! Scott Anthony Taylor Tue, 03/18/2025 - 15:35

Congrats to Jay (and Scott, Michael Castaño-Diaz, Sebastian Gallan-Giraldo, Joseph See!) for publishing a recent paper in Ecology - The Scientific Naturalist that describes possible caterpillar mimicry by white-necked jacobin chicks! Jay and Scott made these observations when Scott was visiting Panama during his sabbatical last year. Be sure to check out the supplemental videos to see the twitching behavior described in the paper!

Quirks and Quarks interview!

Coverage of the paper in Science!

The CU Press Release is here

STRI press release is here

Panamá América

Youtube video about the paper!

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Nate, Sam, and Sara are awarded research grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 01:11:31 +0000

Nate, Sam, and Sara are awarded research grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists! Scott Anthony Taylor Sat, 03/01/2025 - 18:11

Congrats to Nate, Sam, and Sara for being awarded research grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists! Nate will use his funds to study incubation patterns and differences between black-capped and mountain chickadees. Sam will use her funds to study avian pox virus. Sara will use hers to sequence whole genomes of black-capped chickadees as she continues to study the genetics of spatial cognition.

Thanks to the Denver Field Ornithologists for their continued support of Taylor Lab research!

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Sara and Sam are awarded Colorado Filed Ornithologists grants!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 20:26:29 +0000

Sara and Sam are awarded Colorado Filed Ornithologists grants! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 02/26/2025 - 13:26

Congratulations to Sara and Sam for recently being awarded research grants from the Colorado Field Ornithologists!

Sara will use her funds to sequence black-capped chickadee genomes as she continues to explore the genetic basis of variation in spatial cognition in chickadees.

Sam will use her funds to sequence samples of probable avian pox infections in chickadees as part of her planned honors thesis work.

Thanks so much to the Colorado Field Ornithologists for their continued support of our research!

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Will publishes in the Journal of Avian Biology!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:03:03 +0000

Will publishes in the Journal of Avian Biology! Scott Anthony Taylor Mon, 02/17/2025 - 13:03

Congratulations to Will for publishing his first first-author paper in the Journal of Avian Biology! Will's paper describes a region of probable secondary contact between northern house wren subspecies along the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies. This is a significant change from current estimates of northern house wren distributions, as previous work described the Mississippi River as the division between northern house wren species. This work sets the stage for further exploration into the divergent populations of northern house wren, something Will is excited to pursue throughout his PhD!

Read the paper here:

https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jav.03401

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Chickadee hybridization research featured in Scientific American!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 22:19:09 +0000

Chickadee hybridization research featured in Scientific American! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 11/13/2024 - 15:19

The October issue of Scientific American featured a story about chickadee hybridization by Rebecca Heisman that highlighted ongoing work in the lab:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hybrid-chickadees-reveal-how-species-boundaries-can-shift-and-blur/

Very cool to see work from the lab and conducted by our close collaborators featured in the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. Scientific American has been print since 1845!

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Past and present lab members attend the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 02:38:10 +0000

Past and present lab members attend the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/01/2024 - 20:38

Past and present members of the lab recetly attended the 3rd joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Montreal.

Sheela received an American Society of Naturalists Early Career Award and gave an excellent plenary talk. Haley and Kathryn organized a symposium on species interactions and climate change. Haley presented her recent work on chickadee aggression in Colorado, Jay presented recent work on the genetics of female color polymorphism in white-necked jacobins, and Danny presented new postdoc work on Darwin's finch evolution in response to vampire flies. Scott also presented an update on the lab's chickadee hybridization work.

It was a busy meeting and great to catch up with everyone!

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Scott discussed the Boulder Chickadee Study on How on Earth!

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:28:04 +0000

Scott discussed the Boulder Chickadee Study on How on Earth! Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/01/2024 - 18:28

Scott recently discussed the Boulder Chickadee Study with Host Susan Moran from How on Earth, the KGNU Science Show. Listen here!

https://howonearthradio.org/archives/9639

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The 2024 summer field season comes to a close

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:45:43 +0000

The 2024 summer field season comes to a close Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 07/14/2024 - 18:45

Last week marked the final nestling banding of the 2024 Boulder Chickadee Study field season wrapping the 6th year of the study. The team of Will, Sara, Olivia, Ajay, Nikki, Blake, and Sage counted 464 eggs, banded 431 nestlings, and 98 new adults. 32 birds previously banded here in Boulder County were recaptured (with some getting new color bands this season) for a total 561 chickadees handled during the season. Nikki also monitored multiple chickadee nests with nest cams and the data from those will be examined during the fall semester.

The completion of the 6th year of the Boulder Chickadee Study makes it eligible for long-term study funding from the National Science Foundation and Scott will be working on that grant in the coming weeks.

Will also completed his first solo PhD field season sampling house wrens across Colorado and Nebraska collecting blood samples from 87 house wrens and travelling over 2000 miles as he attempts to better define the region of contact between the eastern and western subspecies. He also sampled a number of yellow breasted chats for a previous Taylor Lab undergraduate student, Johanna Beam, who is completing her PhD at Penn State University.

Congrats all on an excellent field season!

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News

Sam, Nate, Eva, and the lab are awarded UROP funding!

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���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������ Chancellor Justin Schwartz and senior vice chancellor for research and innovation Massimo Ruzzene visit the MRS with Scott and Nancy Emery!

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Jay publishes in Ecology on potential caterpillar mimicry by hummingbird chicks!

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Nate, Sam, and Sara are awarded research grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists!

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Sara and Sam are awarded Colorado Filed Ornithologists grants!

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Will publishes in the Journal of Avian Biology!

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Chickadee hybridization research featured in Scientific American!

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Past and present lab members attend the 3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology

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Scott discussed the Boulder Chickadee Study on How on Earth!

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The 2024 summer field season comes to a close

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Chancellor Justin Schwartz and senior vice chancellor for research and innovation Massimo Ruzzene visit the MRS with Scott and Nancy Emery!