current project

I am currently working on a project with Dr. Julia Clarke on hummingbird brains and vocal production learning.  Essentially, we’ve noticed an anomaly which is that birds with high levels of encephalization and vocal production learning tend to have relatively large brains compared to their body size. However with hummingbirds (who possess vocal production learning), this doesn’t appear to be the case as they have relatively small brains for their body size. I’ve been synthesizing as many sources of data containing endocast volume, brain mass and body masses as we can find and compiling them in a master document which we will use to generate comprehensive figures representing the brain-body ratio differences among hummingbird (have VPL) and swifts (a close relative of hummers who don’t have VPL). I’ve also been using a 3d slicer to create endocast models of hummingbird and swift brains so we can get a comprehensive look at brain shape and volume of individuals spanning across the two clades.