booby
  

 
 
 
 
 
 
POSTDOCS
   
Elsie Shogren, Ph.D. Project: Bridging genomics, physiology, and behavioral ecology to uncover mechanisms driving incipient speciation in an island bird

 

I grew up in Nebraska and spent as much time as possible outdoors, exploring every corner of our farm with my siblings. While getting my B.S. at Cornell University, I discovered how awesome birds are and after graduating I got to work on research projects studying Red-backed Fairy-wrens, Greater Prairie Chickens, and Piping Plovers. In 2020 I completed my PhD at Kansas State University in Dr. Alice Boyle’s lab where I studied how the abiotic environment influences the scope of sexual selection in Neotropical Manakins (Pipridae) using comparative and demographic methods, population genetic analyses, and behavioral experiments. I’m thrilled to be joining the lab as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow studying the Monarcha flycatcher system in the Solomon Islands. I will be combining studies of behavior and physiology with genomic data to determine what underlies the repeated evolution of black plumage in a population where both melanic and chestnut colored birds still exist and mate with each other. This window into the earliest stages of speciation is an amazing opportunity to understand how ecology, physiology, behavior, and selection interact to shape the evolutionary trajectories of organisms.

Elsie's personal website

 

   
   
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