Koley came to us from a highly productive PhD at U. Guelph with expertise in physiological ecology and quantitative methods. She has been instrumental on analyzing and writing some core work from our lab’s collaborative projects with Trevor Hefley, testing linkages between rainfall and demography of Grasshopper Sparrows at the Konza Prairie.
Email:
Twitter: @koleyfree
Katy’s PhD dissertation determined the direct and indirect effects of weather on grassland songbirds, from the level of individual physiology up to the community level. She collaborated with Dr. Trevor Hefley and Narmadha Mohankumar to integrate mechanistic drivers into a holistic understanding of how weather affects populations of grassland birds. She defended in spring 2023 , stayed on as a post-doctoral researcher leading our Virtual Fence project, and is now the Assistant Director/Ecologist at the Institute for Applied Ecology in Santa Fe.
Emma’s MSc research focused on long-term trends in grassland bird nesting biology and responses to climatic variation at large spatial scales. She started graduate work with several years of undergraduate experience in the lab including a summer 2018 REU focused the consequences of severe drought on songbird nesting biology at Konza and the trophic interactions driving those effects. You can watch the defense seminar here!
Email: i
Twitter: @inkliizii
Emma’s website
Alli Stanton
Paige Wimberly
(L to R) Katy Silber
Leah Mills
Maddie Ball
Greta Forney
Emma Blackwood
Nathalie Wright
Kristen Hobbs
missing: Liz Sroor
Miriam Reynaldo
(L to R) Kevin Perozeni
Victoria Gaa
Henry Castro-Miller
Miriam Reynaldo
Liz Sroor
Katy Silber
Aja Wong
Alice Boyle
(L to R) Dylan Smith
Kailyn Underwood
Katy Silber
Miriam Reynaldo
Danny Wells
Liz Sroor
(L to R)
Joanna Gresham
Ryan Donnelly
Mariel Winnerman
Katy Silber
Dylan Smith
(missing)
Kristen Kersten
Andrew Mayers
KONZA (L to R)
Dylan Smith
Mary Kate Wilcox
Blair Pfeifer
Joanna Gresham
Katelyn Thomas
(front)
Sarah Winnicki
COSTA RICA (L to R)
Molly Morrissey
Suzy Mateos
Elsie Shogren
(L to R)
Edwin Harris
Braiam Rosado
Darrien Savage
Natasha Bergvine
Sarah Winnicki
Katelyn Thomas
Cole Allen
(L to R)
Michaela Gustafson
Lauren Angermayer
Destiney Hett
Caitie Weichman
Sarah Winnicki
Suzy Replogle-Cornett
(not pictured) Jesse Nguyen
(L to R)
Dylan Smith
Sarah Winnicki
Emily Williams
Chelsea Sink
Yisel Marquez
Suzy Replogle-Cornett
Jackie Gehrt
(L to R top)
Hunter Nedland
Alex Henry
Breyana Ramsey
Sarah Winnicki
(L to R bottom)
Alaina Thomas
Alice Boyle
Dylan Smith
Emily Williams
Amie Sommers
(L to R)
Brandy Carter
Keil Garey
Chyna Pei
Ian Waters
Stefannie Munguia
(not pictured)
Sarah Demadura
Allie Bays
Maddie got involved with the lab through the Applied Methods course spring 2021, learning how to both handle birds and analyze the data we collect. She spent the summer working on Konza, and then continued with related research until she graduated at the end of 2021.
Emma first got introduced to the lab through the Ornithology class spring 2022, and then worked on our Konza research field team over the summer. She continued working with us her senior year, entering & error-checking all our field-collected data, and helping out in the field & lab in many different ways.
Liz joined the lab in fall 2019 and became an integral part of our field and lab operations, leading the field crew in 2022. During her senior year, she played a major role in a lab project investigating variation in egg and clutch size in Grasshopper Sparrows.
We were lucky to recruit Miriam to the lab as a freshman and she stuck with it through graduation! She participated in almost everything we do in the lab, both in Kansas and in the tropics. She is currently completing a manuscript that documents intra-specific brood parasitism in Eastern Meadowlarks.
Joanna spent two years with us in the field and lab in Kansas, and in 2019, she used experimental methods to determine the functional consequences of nest orientation. Joanna led writing of a cool ms on her experiment, did a MS at Kennesaw State University, and is now a PhD student at KU!
Austin (2018-2019) and contributed to understanding the consequences of drought for grassland songbirds by quantifying prey availability in drought vs. more ‘normal’ years (whatever that is!). Follow him on twitter @AustinRoe12 and Birding Blog.
Mary Kate (2017-2019) quantified behavior from videos of manakin leks and grassland nest cams, was part of our Konza field crew, and did countless less rewarding tasks.
Although Cole is pictured here holding a giant catfish, do not be deceived #BirdvsFish folks! Cole worked on our summer crew (2017), then helped (2018-2019) with nest videos and nestling morphometrics.
Suzy worked in the lab during her senior year and then became a full-time field and lab manager. In spring 2017, she assisted Elsie in Costa Rica.
While working at the Marais de Cygne wildlife refuge, Logan collected data to determine the effectiveness of management for Eastern bottomland forest bird communities in KS at the western edge of their distribution.
Darrien was an REU in 2017, studying vegetation structure around nests of grassland songbirds.
Braiam was an REU student in 2017, studying how parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds influences parental activity.
Edwin was an REU student during summer in 2017, studying Grasshopper Sparrows clutch sizes and egg mass under .
Michaela (2016) studied how changes in Grasshopper Sparrows’ body composition is affected by variation in temperature and precipitation.
Yisel MarquezYisel (REU 2015) examined the consequences of storms for nest success of Grasshopper Sparrows.
Breyana (2014-2015) worked with us as part of the Developing Scholars program at K-State.
Emily (2015) examined how fat stores in songbirds responded to temperature and precipitation in winter.
Amie helped out during fall 2014 on a project involving small mammals and metabolites. She completed two grad degrees and now works at the UNL.
Chyna investigated interactions between Dickcissels and Grasshopper Sparrows on the Konza in her senior year.
Steffanie (REU 2013), kicked off a project on the causes of territory aggregation in Grasshopper Sparrows.
Emily with the subject of her MSc thesis… a Grasshopper Sparrow
Emily’s research aimed to explain why Konza’s Grasshopper Sparrows frequently disperse within seasons, sequentially defending multiple territories. Emily documented the frequency and spatial scales of these movements, and tested hypotheses based on food availability and risk avoidance. After four years as an avian biologist at Denali National Park, she began her PhD in Dr. Peter Marra’s lab where she will be studying migration of arctic-breeding birds. Read Emily’s MSc thesis, or check out her 1st publication from her MSc documenting the patterns of breeding dispersal, or her 2nd publication that tests hypotheses explaining why some but not all birds make these movements.
Email:
twitter: @wayfaringwilly
Emily’s website
Sarah’s MS research examined the direct and indirect consequences of parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds for nestling development and juvenile survival in three species of grassland-obligate songbirds, and in turn, the consequences for cowbirds of being raised by different host species. She was been involved with research in the lab since 2014. She published a comprehensive test of alternative explanations for territory aggregation, a study that began when she was an REU student. She completed her MS during the summer of 2019 and is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Illinois in Dr. Mark Hauber’s lab.
email:
Twitter: @skwinnicki
Sarah’s Website
Elsie’s dissertation addressed the interplay between sexual- and natural-selection in Neotropical manakins. She used comparative approaches to understand selection on male traits, demographic methods to understand the importance of rain on survival, cross-site comparisons and genetic methods to link abiotic constraints and sexual selection across populations, and behavioral experiments to understand variation in male reproductive behavior. In fall 2020, she joined Dr. Al Uy’s lab where she will study speciation in the Solomon Islands funded by an NSF post-doctoral fellowship.
Email Elsie
Twitter: @e_shogren
Elsie’s website
Mark banding a greater prairie-chicken
Mark Herse studied how landscape features influence habitat selection in rare and declining birds in E. Kansas based on data from a phenomenal number of point-counts (over 10,000!) conducted over 2 years. Mark is now in New Zealand doing his PhD in the Tylianakis lab. Read Mark’s MS thesis or check out this research description with links to three associated publications.
Email:
Mark’s website