News from the Field
Summer 2011
James Fuller, a fourth year PhD student, is currently completing his dissertation field research in Kenya. James is examing the evolution of vocal behavior in blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis) and studies a wild population in the Kakamega Forest, the only remaining rain forest in Kenya.
Su-Jen Roberts, a fourth year Ph.D. student, will be spending this summer in Kakamega Forest, Kenya, where she is studying variation in male reproductive success in blue monkeys.
Meha Jain, a third year Ph.D. student, will work in Northwest India this summer and fall to examine how farmers adapt their cropping strategies to inter-annual variability in the monsoon. By understanding how farmers respond and adapt to current climate variability, she hopes to better predict how farmers may respond to future climate change.
Bob Muscarella, a second year Ph.D. student, will be in Puerto Rico this summer, collecting data for a study that will use traits and phylogeny to understand processes of community assembly in secondary forests.
Megan Cattau, a first year Ph.D. student, will be in the lowland peatswamp forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, evaluating the effects of landscape change (the conversion of forest to agriculture or barren land) on animals that are key long-distance seed dispersers, focusing on the Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus. She is looking at how altered seed dispersal patterns might affect forest structure and carbon storage on the landscape in the long term.
Francine Kershaw, a first year Ph.D. student, will be in Madagascar this summer where she will be receiving training in cetacean data collection and the preservation and transport of genetic samples. Francine will also be testing the feasibility of recording environmental data in the field in order to cross-correlate with measures derived from remote sensing, and gaining a good understanding of the logistical planning and implementation necessary to undertake genetic sampling of cetaceans.
Rae Wynn-Grant, a first year Ph.D. student, will be studying black bear mortality at the urban/wildland interface in the Lake Tahoe Basin on the California/Nevada boarder this summer.
Cassie Freund, first-year M.A. student, will working with E3B Ph.D. student Megan Cattau in Borneo this summer, doing research on seed dispersal by large mammals in restored peat swamp forests.
Tatiana Escovar Fadul, a first year M.A. student, will be working at the American Museum of Natural History this summer on issues related to climate change in the arctic.
Nilorfar Bayani, first-year MA student, will be working at a research station in Glover's Reef Atoll, Belize this summer, examining the effect of coral reef degradation on the recruitment of reef fish larvae.
Trevor Granger, first-year M.A. student, will be studying the ecophysiology of a variety of native and non-native green roof plants in NYC. With this information Trevor hopes to construct modeled estimates of green roofs' capacities to mitigate stormwater runoff.
Erin Mulcahy, first-year M.A. student, will be studying African Wild Dog scent communication with implications for human-wildlife conflict mitigation at the Bronx Zoo this summer.
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