I am a pretty happy camper. Someone responded to my invitation to say something about what they are doing. So this blog is going in the right direction. It is not just about what I have to say. I introduced Shailee Shah a few days ago and this is what she has to say in her own words:
My name is Shailee and I’m a PhD student at Columbia University. I’m interested in social behavior in animals. As an undergraduate at Cornell University, I got really interested in birds and now, for my PhD, I’m working on superb starlings – these beautiful, iridescent birds found all over East Africa that are cooperative breeders. Cooperative breeding is when individuals help feed and protect offspring of other individuals of the same species – so it’s mom, dad, and one or more “helpers” bringing food and guarding the nest! Generally, the helpers are closely related individuals — they could be cousins or siblings from a previous brood — and by helping raise these offspring with whom they share a lot of genes they are effectively helping propagate their own genes into future generations. In superb starlings, however, the helpers are not always closely related. This is really intriguing and we don’t yet know what other benefits these unrelated helpers might be getting. It could be protection from predators or access to food or even access to future breeding opportunities. And that’s what I’m interested in figuring out. One of the ways I plan to do that is by looking at these birds’ genes. When I catch the birds I take a blood sample that I can then use to sequence their DNA. How diverse the genes of birds from a certain social group are will give me an idea of how connected the group is to the rest of the population — i.e. do a lot of birds immigrate into the group or not. Relating that to the habitat quality at their site will help me understand what sort of habitat these birds prefer, and thus give me an idea of what benefits they are chasing by living in and joining these social groups!
Thanks Shailee. She has her own blog and if you want to check it out click here, but please come back, I need all the readers I can get!