Carolina's hummingbird torpor paper on NPR

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A while ago, with Gustavo’s lab we finally published superstar undergrad Carolina Revelo’s bachelor’s thesis in Proc B (Ecological drivers and consequences of torpor in Andean hummingbirds). This was a beast of a thesis that Carolina did multiple field seasons for, and when we started working together on this in Cali in 2017, she was very close to having a manuscript that was ready for publishing.

However, good things take time, and we spent the next few years working on this on the side, as we all pursued different degrees and paths in Colombia, the US and Australia. During that time, we wrestled with a really challenging question of how to define torpor in birds that challenge the definition of homeothermy from multiple quantitative angles, and eventually added a fun comparative part to the story. When the paper eventually came out (after a really helpful review process and brianstorming at a special session at SICB 2023), we had a neat cover story, divulged with help from Talia and the fabulous press office at WashU.

Carolina’s herculean efforts in the field just about singlehandedly doubled the amount of individuals and species that were known to use torpor at that time, and the results were quite strong: torpor is widespread, but a totally context-dependent tool that montane hummingbirds can deploy as needed, depending on how lean their energy budget is running, depending on how tough the conditions get, and not all species seem to have the same ability to muster torpor.

This winter, we are super lucky to have it featured on NPR as part of a story on wildlife responses to cold snaps.