The lab has been busting with good news lately. Congratulations are due to many of our lab mates:
- Flavia Montaño & Diego Garcia were both awarded 2018 summer fellowships from UF’s Biodiversity Institute
Flavia will head to Bolivia to record bats using automatic sound recorders along the same elevational gradient she sampled birds in the Andes. Diego heads to northwest Peru to sample birds along an elevational gradient in dry forests and will be joined by Drs. Angelica Almeyda and Eben Broadbent to fly their drone to gather LiDAR and spectral images of the forest. Scott Robinson and Bette Loiselle will tag along on this trip to help design the PhD study.
- Farah Carrasco & Flavia Montaño were awarded UF Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Awards!
Farah and Flavia are in the final stretch of their PhD programs and will use these funds to assist them while writing their dissertations (Farah for Summer and Fall 2018 and Flavia for Fall 2018)
- Vanessa Luna received a field research grant from the Tropical Conservation and Development program and the Tinker Foundation through the Center for Latin American Studies.
Vanessa heads to the field this summer to study patterns of deforestation in community areas where private protected areas have been established. She will use remote-sensed images, together with information on roads and land use practices to map changes in forest cover over the past 15+ years. In addition, she will conduct interviews with community members and officials in areas with and without private protected areas. This research will be part of her Master’s thesis.
- Robinson Botero Arias received travel awards from IFAS and WGSA to attend the 25th Working Meeting of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group being held in Santa Fe, Argentina from 7-10 May 2018.
Robin has long played an active role in the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist group, and his involvement compliments his extensive research on caimans in Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve.
- Bette Loiselle received the William Brewster Award from the American Ornithological Society at its 2018 annual meeting in Tuscon, Arizona.
This award is given annually to the author or co-authors of the most meritorious body of work (book, monograph, or series of related papers) on birds of the Western Hemisphere published during the past ten years. The award consists of a medal and an honorarium and is given in honor of William Brewster, one of the founding members of the AOU.