Our research focuses on gaining a mechanistic understanding of how individuals and populations respond to changes in their environment in order to project how future change may alter a population’s dynamics and evolutionary trajectory. ​

Breaking News

  • We have been tracking Black-tailed Godwits for nearly a decade now and have learned a considerable amount, but that doesn't mean there isn't more to learn! Our latest paper by Mo Verhoeven in the Journal of Ornithology shows that the majority of godwits use emergency stopover sites along the Moroccan coast during northward migration at least once in their life. If we were to only have followed godwits for a single year, this pattern would not have been apparent. But it suggests that we cannot just focus our conservation efforts on big sites where lots of birds congregate.
  • So proud to announce that lab member Julian Garcia Walther was awarded a Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act Grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service along with seven partner organizations across Northwest Mexico. Julian and co. are going to launch the first network of Motus towers in the region to track the movements of endangered coastal birds, like Red Knots and Elegant Terns. This should pay real dividends for both avian science and conservation!
  • Ever wonder how songbirds survive winters at high latitudes? Our new paper by lab collaborator Maria Stager in Journal of Experimental Biology shows that Dark-eyed Juncos are able to layer their physiological responses to meet the specific demands of their environment. Short bouts of cold are thus met by different responses than long bouts. This suggests that juncos are highly flexible in how they can respond to changes in temperature. That's good news in our new, highly variable and unpredictable world.
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senner at mailbox.sc.edu
Department of Biological Sciences
University of South Carolina​
Coker Life Sciences 406
Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.A.