I'm a behavioral ecologist interested broadly in sexual selection, animal communication, and collective behavior. I completed a masters degree studying male agonistic signaling in black-and-white colobus monkeys at the University of Calgary, and currently I am a PhD candidate in the Ryan lab at UT Austin studying chorusing frogs and katydids. My PhD research has focused on understanding the proximate sensory drivers of male call-timing decisions, and the consequences of the resulting male call-timing interactions for female choice. In particular, túngara frogs have proven to be a uniquely tractable system for addressing these questions. They call within dense choruses in the wild, and I have collaborated with them to generate large amounts of detailed acoustic interaction data. Using data science approaches to discern meaningful patterns in the (seemingly) chaotic din of these choruses has been highly rewarding. Furthermore, this approach has yielded novel insights into how collective chorusing dynamics are driven by complex interactions between interacting males' call-timing mechanisms and fluctuations in the acoustic scene at the chorus.

Larter, L. C., Ryan, M. J. (in review). Responses to Frequency- and Amplitude-Modulated Tones Reveal Interacting Sensory Drivers of Call-Timing Decisions in a Chorusing Frog. In review at Proceedings of the Royal Society B (manuscript ID: RSPB-2024-0992).

Larter, L. C., Ryan, M. J. (in press) Túngara frog call-timing decisions arise as internal rhythms interact with fluctuating chorus noise. Behavioral Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arae034

Larter, L. C., Ryan, M. J. (2024). Female preferences for more elaborate signals are an emergent outcome of male chorusing interactions in túngara frogs. The American Naturalist. https://doi.org/10.1086/727469

Larter, L. C., Page, R. A., Bernal, X. E., Ryan, M. J. (2023). Local competitive environment and male condition influence within-bout calling patterns in túngara frogs. Bioacoustics. https://doi.org/10.1080/09524622.2022.2070544

Larter, L.C. (2021) Graded signals. In: Vonk J., Shackelford T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1691-2

Larter, L.C. (2021) Communication networks, eavesdropping and audience effects. In: Vonk J., Shackelford T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1661-1

Instructor of Record:

Anthropology 311: Primate Behaviour

Anthropology 201: Introduction to Biological Anthropology

Teaching Assistant:

Biology 359: Animal Behavior

Neuroscience 367: Evolutionary Neurobiology

Biology 311: Introductory Biology II

Anthropology 311: Primate Behaviour

Anthropology 451: Topics in Primate Behavioral Ecology and Conservation

Anthropology 201: Introduction to Biological Anthropology

Anthropology 505, 552, and 553: Primatology Field Course in Ghana

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