Recent News

T. Brandt Ryder (PhD 2008, advisor John Blake) and Wendy Tori (PhD 2008, advisor Bette Loiselle) just had a paper accepted in Behavioral Ecology, Mate choice for genetic quality: a test of the heterozygosity and compatibility hypotheses. Brandt is now on a post-doc at Smithsonian Institution with Dr. Peter Marra and Wendy is an Assistant Professor at Earlham College.

Eliot Miller (2nd year PhD student, UMSL) received a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship this past summer. Eliot has also received a grant from the Saint Louis Audubon Society for his proposed dissertation work on the evolution of lekking behavior.

T. Patricia Feria (PhD 2007) had a paper published in the October 2009 issue of Conservation Biology (Vol. 23:1156-1166), A GIS-based comparison of the Mexican National and IUCN methods for determining extinction risk. Paty is now an Assistant Professor at University of Texas-Pan American.

Seema Sheth (MS 2006) just had a paper published in the Journal of Tropical Ecology (Vol. 25:571-582), Phylogenetic constraints on fine-scale patterns of habitat use by eight primate species in eastern Ecuador. This paper reports on aspects of her thesis research. Seema is now in a PhD program at Colorado State University.

Kimberly Holbrook (PhD 2006) paper on Dispersal in a neotropical tree, Virola flexuosa (Myristicaceae): does hunting of large vertebrates limit seed removal? recently appeared in the journal Ecology (Vol. 90:1449-1455). Kimberly is currently on a post-doctoral fellowship to work with Dr. Pedro Jordano at Estación Biológica de Doñana in Spain.

Bette Loiselle and John Blake co-coordinated the OTS Graduate Specialty Course on Ecology and Conservation of Neotropical Birds in Costa Rica (14-27 May 2009). The course had 19 participants from 11 countries. Eliot Miller and Jose Hidalgo from UMSL were alums from the course. John Bates (Field Museum) and Tom Sherry (Tulane University) were visiting faculty.

Last updated 15 November 2009.