September 2026
Dave gives plenary at 4th World Seabird Conference and receives PSG Lifetime Achievement Award.
May 2026
John Yoo and Elsie Shogren invite Rosemary and Peter Grant for a talk, and birding!
February 2026
Trey Ursillo’s Honors Thesis published!
Ursillo, T., D. Reyes, E. M. R. Reyes, F. van Oordt, A. Moran, J. L. McKee, E. J Rebol, M. G. London, J. B. Huskey, and D. J Anderson. 2026. Sex-specific colony attendance before and during the fertilization window in Nazca boobies. Frontiers in Bird Science 5:1738732. doi: 10.3389/fbirs.2026.1738732
November 2025
New study of female boobies getting their way:
Anderson, D. J., K. P. Huyvaert, P. M. Espinosa, M. A. Westbrock, J. A. Awkerman, and E. G. Schneider. 2025. Female sexual agency and frequent extra-pair copulations, but no extra-pair paternity, in Nazca boobies (Sula granti). PLoS ONE 20(10): e0324762. doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324762
September 2024
Two new papers in press at Marine Ornithology:
Clifford, L. D. and D. J. Anderson. Oviposition lag in Nazca boobies Sula granti, and
Cruz, S. M., L. R. Halpin, C. Proaño, D. J. Anderson, and M. Wikelski. The owl gull: exclusive nocturnal foraging by the swallow-tailed gull Creagrus furcatus in Galápagos.
April 2023
Trey Ursillo received the Biology Department’s Carolina Biological Supply Company Research Award, given to the research MVP of our undergrads. Update, May 2024: Trey is accepted in the Ph.D. program at Michigan State!
March 2023
Jenny Howard’s paper with Emily Tompkins is in press: Howard, JL, EM Tompkins, and DJ Anderson. Age effects on Nazca booby foraging performance are constant across variation in the marine environment: results from a 5-year study in Galápagos. Ecology and Evolution
January 2022
Erynn Rebol’s new paper: “Sex-specific aging in bite force in a wild vertebrate”, Experimental Gerontology 159: 111661
August 2021
Emily Tompkins’ new paper is out! “Breeding responses to environmental variation are age- and trait-dependent in female Nazca boobies. Ecology e03457.
June 2021
Jenny Howard recognized with the 2020-21 WFU Biology Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award!
March 2021
“Global political responsibility for the conservation of albatrosses and large petrels”, Dave Anderson with many, many co-authors, published in Science Advances 7 (10): eabd7225.
February 2021
Jenny Howard’s paper “Effects of age, sex, and ENSO phase on foraging and flight performance in Nazca boobies” in press now at Ecology and Evolution.
April 2020
Erynn Rebol defended her M.S. thesis entirely on-screen! Weaker Bite Force in Elderly Nazca Boobies.
March 2020
Season 37 of the Nazca booby project cut off in the middle of chick-rearing by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Research, and life, on hold around the world.
May 2019
Jenny Howard selected as a 2019 AAAS Mass Media Fellow! The fellowship places science and engineering students at media organizations across the nation to improve their ability to communicate complex scientific topics for a general audience. She will spend 10 weeks this summer writing for National Geographic.
February 2019
Emily Tompkins’ paper “Sex-specific patterns of senescence in Nazca boobies linked to mating system” came out in Journal of Animal Ecology: DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12944.
December 2018
Congratulations Emily Tompkins, now Dr. Emily Tompkins!
September 2018
Dr. Terri Maness, Ph.D. 2008, received tenure at Louisiana Tech University! Yay Terri!
https://manesslablatech.weebly.com/
Also Jenny Howard attends AniMove workshop in Germany, brings back great new analytical approaches.
September 2018
Welcome new M.S. Student Erynn Rebol, alum of Willamette Univ!
August 2018
Jenny Howard’s photo exhibit is at Wake Downtown now, exhibit, “[photo]Tracking in the Galápagos”. It presents ~35 photos taken during her doctoral research in Galápagos, and runs through October 11.
August 2018
Our group at the IOC in Vancouver! Emily Tompkins and Jenny Howard (current doctoral students), Nicholas Per Huffeldt (Ph.D. 2018, now at Aarhus U. in Denmark), and Martina Muller (M.S. 2007, now at U. Rhode Island).
May 2018
New paper! “Pacific Decadal and El Nino oscillations shape survival of a seabird”, Ecology 99:1063-1072, by Jocelyn Champagnon, Jean-Dominique Lebreton, Hugh Drummond, and Dave Anderson. Also today we wrapped up season 35 of our field study of Nazca boobies in Galapagos.
April 2018
Congratulations Nicholas Per Huffeldt, passed his dissertation defense today!!!
February 2018
Our camp in Galapagos, and research site in the background.
January 2018
Jacquie Grace’s paper came out in Biology Letters: “Early-life maltreatment predicts adult stress response in a long-lived wild bird”. Biology Letters 14:20170679.
December 2017
Terri Maness’ paper “Serum chemistry of free-ranging Nazca boobies (Sula granti)” is out now in the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine 48:1234-1238.
October 2017
Field team leaves for Galapagos for breeding season #35 of our Nazca booby study.
September 2017
Welcome new undergraduate research students Cameron Munley and Lisa Liu (sleep in wild birds), Landis Pujol (sex-specific activity patterns in Arctic seabirds), and Danny Kelleher and Denas Kisonas (fluctuating asymmetry in tropical seabirds). Looking forward to hearing about your results!
August 2017
Emily Tompkins‘ paper “Decadal-scale variation in diet forecasts persistently poor breeding under ocean warming in a tropical seabird” came out in PLoS ONE! 476 views in the first two days. For some media coverage, see Science Daily. 2004 Ph.D. alum Howard Townsend participated in this paper too!
July 2017
Emily Tompkins‘ paper “Avian pox discovered in the critically endangered waved albatross” came out in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases. M.S. alum Kate Huyvaert (now at Colorado State) was on this too.
June 2017
Successful shakeout flights of our quadcopter at our Galapagos field site. Thanks, Kate Huyvaert for the photos.
May 2017
Galapagos Conservancy and the Bluefeet Foundation award us funding for the project
“Population size of blue-footed boobies in Galápagos: evaluation of indications of population decline”. Field work in June for this study!
April 2017
David Anchundia’s second paper from his M.S. research is accepted at Marine Ornithology:
“Overland flight by seabirds at Isla Isabela, Galapagos” (David Anchundia, Jacob Anderson, and David Anderson)
March 2017
Nicholas received a Richter Award from WFU that he’ll use to spend the Fall semester 2017 with Barbara Helm’s group at the University of Glasgow.
March 2017
Jenny Howard returns to Isla Espanola, Galapagos to wrap up her third year of doctoral research. Mortality of nestling Nazca boobies appears to have been high since late January under these La Nina conditions… a surprise.
February 2017
Congrats Jenny! Best Doctoral Poster award at the Pacific Seabird Group meeting in Portland, OR!!!
September 2016
Nicholas Per Huffeldt’s paper “Sex-specific, inverted rhythms of breeding-site attendance in an Arctic seabird” comes out in Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0289
August 2016
Emily Tompkins, Nicholas Huffeldt, Jenny Howard, and Dave Anderson all present results at the North American Ornithological Congress in Washington, D.C.
May 2016
Congrats Jenny Howard! Awarded a three-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship!