Current Lab Projects

​

Ray Pressman: Effects of incubation temperature and early nutrition on begging behavior and personality development in zebra finches, with implications for behavioral ecology and climate resilience.

 

Lauren Dawson-Scully: Bill size, territory defense, song performance, and temperature: investigating behavioral tradeoffs in Bachman’s Sparrows.

 

Heather Wolverton: Evolution and ontogeny of large song type repertoires and syntax use in the Bachman’s Sparrow; Song development in lab-reared Bachman's sparrows; Song as a signal of male quality in Bachman's sparrow.

​

Hans Gonzembach: Factors affecting acoustic transmission of birdsong: variation among song types and the effects of habitat on Bachman’s sparrow (Peucaea aestivalis) song; Testing the social function of complex song in Bachman's sparrow; Testing the relationship between vocal performance of complex song and individual quality in Bachman’s sparrow.​

​

Haley Knapp: Quantifiably defining and categorizing the burst-pulse vocalization in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), while examining age, sex, behavioral and individual correlations with burst-pulse vocalizations.

 

Lab Happenings:

We now have an Instagram! @babel_fau​

 

Congra​tulations to Ray for winning a Jacobson Jewish Community Foundation Graduate Scholarship and the ⁠⁠Dr. G. Alex and Carla Marsh FAU Biological Sciences Graduate Scholarship!

​

Congratulations to Lauren for all her grant wins! Cruickshank Research Award, American Ornithological Society Grant, Animal Behavior Society Grant, John Nambu Scholarship for Molecular Biology

​

March 2025: Congratulations to Ray for placing Second Runner Up in FAU's 3 Minute Thesis Competition!

 

December 2024:  Check out our new paper in Oikos Ornamentation and body condition, but not glucocorticoids, predict wild songbird cloacal microbiome community and diversity. Morgan Slevin, Jennifer Houtz, Maren Vitousek, Daniel Baldassarre, and Rindy Anderson. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.10905

​

October 30 2024:  CONGRATULATIONS to PhD student Morgan Slevin who defended his dissertation! Well done Dr. Slevin!

 

October 29 2024:   Check out our new paper in Journal of Avian Biology  Syntax in animal communication: its study in songbirds and other taxa. Heather Wolverton and Rindy Anderson.  https://doi.org/10.1111/jav.03258

​

​August 2024: Welcome new PhD students Ray Pressman and Lauren Dawson-Scully!

​

​July 2024: Rindy traveled to the Animal Behavior Society conference at Western University in London, ON.

​

April 2024: Congratulations to Rindy, who was named the 2023-2024 Faculty Member of the Year for the FAU Davie campus! 

​

January 2024: Rindy traveled to Seattle, WA to attend the SICB 2024 conference.

​

November 2023: Congratulations to Rindy for winning an FAU College of Science Research Fellows Award!

​

November 2023: CONGRATULATIONS to Hans Gonzembach who defended his dissertation proposal and advanced to candidacy! Great job Hans!

​

August 2023: Check out our new paper in Southeastern Naturalist Spatial Pattern of Song-type Sharing in Male Bachman’s Sparrows in South Florida. Joseph M. Niederhauser and Rindy C. Anderson. Vol 22 (3), 315-332 https://doi.org/10.1656/058.022.0304

 

CONGRATULATIONS to Billy Abbott for defending his MS thesis like a boss on April 26. Great job Billy! And, he has already landed a dream job in California, watch this rising star!

​

Congratulations to Rindy, who was named the 2022 FAU College of Science Scholar of the Year!

​

​