Ecology Letters with Jonathan Myers and defense

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A whirlwind end to my final PhD year! A week before my thesis defense in September, the good news came through that our project on bird dispersal ability and species-area relationships was accepted at Ecology Letters (Avian Dispersal Ability Shapes Species-Area Relationships on Islands Worldwide). This was a real “recreational science” project, that had started as a class final project for Jonathan Myers’ Community Ecology class in Fall 2020, TA’d by co-conspirator David Henderson. On rainy days we pushed this project forwards, with lots of input from friends, committee members and collaborators in the Myers-Tello labs. Over the years, the Myers lab eventually become a natural fit for co-advising, and I’m happy with the result of this collaboration and delighted with Talia Ogliore’s summary of it: Island Biodiversity Rides on the Wings of Birds.

The thesis defense was a real treat. Thanks Carlos for the years of mentorship, everyone in the BoteroLab, and my committee.

En route to start a post-doc at University of California Santa Cruz with Ari Martinez and the Forest Fear Lab, I dropped in on the AOS meeting for some long-overdue reunions with friends and colleagues and a slew of riveting presentations. Super pumped to get back into data-rich Neotropical systems!