Press release! Importance of parakeet social history

 

Mike Miller did a great press release for our recent paper on rank dynamics and social history in monk parakeets. Thanks Mike!


 

These birds vacation at their peril

Gregarious monk parakeets lose social standing during an absence

 

Stephen Hawking famously said showing up is half the battle.

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New preprint! The importance of social history on rank in parakeets

We just posted a new preprint “Social manipulations disentangle rank effects of individual characteristics and social history”. This paper was led by Hobson Lab postdoc Annemarie van der Marel, with support from Hobson Lab PhD students Xavier Francis, Claire O’Connell, Chelsea Carminito, and our former postbac Cesar Estien (who is currently a PhD student at UC Berkeley).… [Read full details]

New paper & fieldwork coverage from UC

Mike Miller at UC News did a nice write up of the lab’s new paper that also touched on some of our recent fieldwork. See the full article here.

Twitter fight: Birds use social networks to pick opponents

UC biologist studies how animals maintain status in dominance hierarchies

By Michael Miller

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Parakeet research: pool party!

The parakeets adapted rapidly to life in the flight pen. On the first day, just hours after releasing them into the flight pen, the birds were already behaving normally and exploring the pen. This is a short video of the group throwing a “pool party” and taking baths in one of their water dishes.… [Read full details]