News

Congratulation Sam, Eva, and Nate!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 01:42:37 +0000

Congratulation Sam, Eva, and Nate! Scott Anthony Taylor Tue, 07/14/2026 - 19:42

Congratulations to our three recently graduated stellar undergrads Sam, Eva, and Nate! All three completed impressive honor's thesis projects that they will be presenting this summer at various scientific meetings and that they are all writing up for publication!

Sam studied the impacts of scaly-leg mites on mountain chickadee health and reproduction, Eva studied provisioning behaviors in black-capped and mountain chickadees, and Nate investigated incubation behaviors in mountain and black-capped chickadees!

Congrats all! We're excited to see what you do next!

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Evolution 2026

Scott Anthony Taylor — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 17:10:59 +0000

Evolution 2026 Scott Anthony Taylor Sat, 07/04/2026 - 11:10

Lab members recently attended the 2026 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution in Cleveland. Sara, Sam, Lucas, and Nate all presented their work during the poster sessions. Congrats to Sara for receiving honorable mention for her poster!

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Congratulations Nate!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:53:14 +0000

Congratulations Nate! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 04/22/2026 - 09:53

Nate received funding from the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Grant offered by AMNH for his proposal on the genetic basis and spatial patterns of polymorphic mimicry in Lampsilis fasciola or the “wavy-rayed lampmussel”. He will use the funds for field collection of tissue samples from mussels across their geographic range as a means of understanding the genetic differentiation and phenotypic variation of mantle lure mimicry among populations.

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Congratulations Lucas!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:25:54 +0000

Congratulations Lucas! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 04/01/2026 - 22:25

Congrats to Lucas who was awarded the Chapman Research Grant from AMNH and a $10,000 postgraduate scholarship from the NCAA.

Lucas will use his Chapman Research Grant, which is an ornithology grant for projects focused on the evolutionary biology of birds and specimen-based research, for his proposal “Investigating Historical Introgression in Colorado Chickadees using Museum Specimens.” He will use the funds to sequence historical black-capped chickadee specimens from the Denver metropolitan area in effort to understand how changing forest cover and landscape may be connected to genetic change and hybridization between black-capped and mountain chickadees.

The NCAA award is one of 42 given to exceptional student-athletes as part of the 2025-26 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship program. These student-athletes, representing fall sports across all three NCAA divisions, have demonstrated outstanding academic achievements, athletic excellence and leadership within their communities.

Congrats Lucas!

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Congrats to Nate, Lucas, Sara, and Will!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:02:00 +0000

Congrats to Nate, Lucas, Sara, and Will! Scott Anthony Taylor Fri, 03/20/2026 - 14:02

It's the time of year where folks in the lab apply for as many small grants as they can to support their independent research. Thanks to the many funding agencies who have provided grants this year!

Nate received a Beverley Sears Award to fund his Lampsilis faciola reference genome.

Lucas received funding from Denver Field Ornithologists and Aiken Audubon to fund his work exploring historical hybridization between black-capped and mountain chickadees using museum specimens.

Sara received funding from Denver Field Ornithologists to fund her working exploring variation in spatial cognition in black-capped and mountain chickadees

Will received funding from Aiken Audubon to fund a new project examining historical hybridization between blue jays and Steller's jays!

Congrats all!

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Eva and Sam participate in the UROP Sidewalk Symposium!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 20:46:44 +0000

Eva and Sam participate in the UROP Sidewalk Symposium! Scott Anthony Taylor Fri, 10/10/2025 - 14:46

Closing out the Research & Innovation week at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� is the UROP Sidewalk Symposium. This year Sam and Eva both participated, sharing drawings of their honors thesis work, which was funded with UROP grants last summer. Awesome to see chickadees in chalk!

Sam's UROP funded honors thesis work is focused on understanding the distribution, genetics, and impacts of scaly-leg mites that we sometimes find on chickadees in Boulder County!

Eva's UROP funded honors thesis work is focused on understanding whether parental feeding behavior differs between mountain and black-capped chickadees in Boulder County.

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GREEBs 2025 - colorful, engaging, and fun!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 14:14:58 +0000

GREEBs 2025 - colorful, engaging, and fun! Scott Anthony Taylor Thu, 10/02/2025 - 08:14

The 52nd Annual meeting of the Guild of Rocky Mountain Ecologists and Evolutionary Biologists took place at the University of Colorado Mountain Research Station Sept 26 - 28, 2025. Surrounded by yellow and orange aspens, the weekend was filled with interesting and engaging talks on topics ranging from the impacts of fire retardant to the genetics and physiology of high-elevation adaptation!

The keynotes speakers this year, Dr. Jon Velotta (University of Denver) and Dr. Sisimac Duchicela (University of Colorado Boulder), gave engaging and fascinating talks on Friday and Saturday evenings. The first ever GREEBS S'mores took place on Friday and Trivia took place on Saturday!

We're looking forward to another awesome meeting in 2026!

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Kathryn's final thesis chapter is accepted in Evolution!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:07:34 +0000

Kathryn's final thesis chapter is accepted in Evolution! Scott Anthony Taylor Mon, 09/29/2025 - 12:07

Congratulations to Kathryn and her co-authors for the recent acceptance of her final thesis chapter in Evolution. The manuscript, titled Extensive local introgression despite rare contemporary hybridization between two backyard songbirds, is the first manuscript about the genetic patterns we're finding among Boulder County chickadees. These samples were all collected through the Boulder Chickadee Study, a field study established by Kathryn during her time as a PhD student at Cu Boulder, that has been running for 7 years.

The main findings of the paper are summarized in the graphical abstract!

Congrats everyone!

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AOS 2025 - St. Louis

Scott Anthony Taylor — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:04:39 +0000

AOS 2025 - St. Louis Scott Anthony Taylor Mon, 08/18/2025 - 13:04

Several members of the lab attended the 2025 AOS meeting in St. Louis. Always an excellent meeting, it was great to catch up with colleagues and see the latest and greats in ornithological research.

Congrats to Maria for her early career award (and excellent plenary talk!) as well as Georgy, Sara, and Will for their excellent talks. Scott spoke about Jay's recent paper on potential caterpillar mimicry by white-necked jacobin chicks to a packed room and Sara led the Quiz Bowl, which was enjoyed by all!

Looking forward to AOS 2026 in Amherst!

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Welcome Lucas and Nate!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 02:26:00 +0000

Welcome Lucas and Nate! Scott Anthony Taylor Tue, 08/05/2025 - 20:26

A warm welcome to Lucas Florsheim and Nate Neal - the most recent PhD students to join the Taylor Lab!

Lucas plans to expand on work investigating hybridization between black-capped and mountains chickadees using broader geographic sampling, temporal sampling using museum specimens, and transcriptomics.

Nate, who is co-advised with Dr. Jingchun Li, will explore the genetic basis of mantle lure polymorphism in the freshwater mussel Lampsilis fasciola.

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