Studying social structure and the evolution of sociality
This year’s crew was led by Hobson Lab postdoc Annemarie van der Marel who was joined by awesome field assistants Chelsea Carminito, Claire O’Connell, and Alexa P. Our goal was to collect new social interaction data from parakeet groups. The plan was to conduct several “social perturbations”, each time removing an individual from the group and seeing how the group responded.… [Read full details]
Dr. Annemarie van der Marel joined the Hobson Lab this week as our first Postdoctoral Researcher! Annemarie did her PhD at the University of Manitoba with Dr. Jane Waterman, focusing on squirrel behavior.
Here in the Hobson Lab, she’ll be leading the relaunch of our Monk Parakeet projects, looking at sociality, decision-making, and cognition in this highly successful invasive parrot species. … [Read full details]
The first new Cincinnati Zoo babies of the year are baby penguins!
Here’s the news from the zoo: http://cincinnatizoo.org/news-releases/little-blue-penguin-hatchlings-kick-off-cincinnati-zoos-year-of-the-penguin/
The zoo is reporting Reuben and Chip as the parents of these two new chicks. Interestingly, in our very preliminary analyses last semester in Penguin Data Club, Reuben was very social while Chip was not (based on RFID tags and swimming data).… [Read full details]
Sajay Prasher joined the lab this week as our first PhD student.
Sanjay did his Masters work Dr. Julie Morand-Ferron in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottowa. His previous work focused on cognition in chickadees (MSc titled “Examining the predictors of technical and consumer innovation in black-capped chickadees”).… [Read full details]
“Penguin Data Club” is a weekly meeting for undergrads at the University of Cincinnati. Working in collaboration with Dr. Katie Kalafut and the Cincinnati Zoo, we will dig into the social lives of Little Blue Penguins.
*** UPDATE: Penguin Data Club meetings in Spring 2020 have been scheduled for Fridays, 3:00-5:00, in Rieveschl 713.… [Read full details]
I was invited to be a lecturer and faculty mentor for the second annual Complex Networks Winter Workshop in Quebec City, Canada. CNWW (pronounced “canoe”) is a one-week crash course in transdisciplinary approaches to complex networks, bringing together biologists, social scientists, mathematicians, and more to learn about a variety of network methods and to conduct independent group projects, all while staying in the historic monastery in beautiful Quebec City.… [Read full details]
This semester, I recruited University of Cincinnati undergrads interested in gaining research experience with a volunteer data analysis opportunity. The students used data collected at the Cincinnati Zoo, and generously shared by Dr. Katie Kalafut, to start to learn how to clean and manage data, run analyses, and code in R. … [Read full details]
Background: This semester, I started “Penguin Data Club” for University of Cincinnati undergrads who are interested in learning how to analyze and work with data, how to code in R, and to learn about the social lives of penguins. We are collaborating with Dr.… [Read full details]
I started “Penguin Data Club” this fall at the University of Cincinnati. Working in collaboration with Dr. Katie Kalafut and the Cincinnati Zoo, we will dig into the social lives of Little Blue Penguins.
This is an opportunity for undergrad students to volunteer 2 hours / week to learn about data analysis, coding in R, social network analysis, and of course, penguins!… [Read full details]
This project is a volunteer research opportunity for University of Cincinnati undergraduate students in Dr. Liz Hobson’s lab.
A group of students will work collaboratively together using an existing dataset on penguin movements to analyze their social relationships. The work will involve data cleaning and management, data analysis and coding in R, and social network analysis.… [Read full details]