People

Lydia Nixon: Lydia is a PhD candidate studying bat behavior, ecology, and endocrinology with a focus on corticosteroids. The goal of her research is to better understand how environmental factors may be influencing circulating levels of cortisol and corticosterone in big brown bats and little brown bats. Her fieldwork mostly occurs across North Dakota and Pennsylvania. In addition, Lydia also has a special interest in STEM education and teaching. Lydia's hobbies include camping, cooking, gardening, and volunteering at local animal shelters by fostering "bottle baby" kittens.

Brian Springall: Brian is a PhD student studying the communication behaviors of bats. He joined the lab in 2019, after doing a Master’s at UNCG, where he studied species specific variation in in-flight social calls. Brian’s primary research interest is the interplay between social organization, communication, and cognition. His dissertation research focuses on how bats encode and respond to socially relevant information in their communication signals.

Derek Krueger: Derek is an M.Sc. student studying changes and trends in the bat populations of North Dakota. His research involves the use of passive acoustic monitoring to examine the distribution of various bat species across the state. He is also studying occupancy in bats, and how occupan affected by different environmental factors.

Past Students

Hanna Karevold: Hanna's M.Sc. work examined the diet of little brown bats living in North Dakota using genetic tools. Hanna also studied the relationship between ear length, diet, and foraging strategy in little brown bats, combining geometric morphometrics with ecological and genetic data. Hanna completed her M.Sc. in Summer 2021.

Amy Schmitt: Amy's M.Sc. work examined the repeatability of behavior in relation to the social environment. Her work focused on a captive population of big brown bats, Eptesicus fuscus, maintained at the NDSU Conservation Research Facility at the Red River Zoo in Fargo, ND. Amy completed her M.Sc. in Fall 2018.

Nick Johnson: Nick's M.Sc. research examined how how predation risk impacts behavioral repeatability in wild populations of degus, Octodon degus. His research involved studying the behavior of a population of degus in Chile from which predators had been experimentally excluded for more than 20 years. Nick completed his M.Sc. in Fall 2019.

Katy Goodwin: Katy's M.Sc. research looked at passive acoustic monitoring data collected from 10 national parks in the Great Lakes Region, with a focus on examining trends over a three-year period in the relative abundance of certain bat species. Her work was done in collaboration with the National Park Service. Katy also examined how program version impacts acoustic identification results for bat echolocation analyses. Katy completed her M.Sc. in Spring 2019.

Dr. JJ Nelson: JJ's Ph.D. research examined fine-scale foraging ecology of bats in North Dakota. His research included documenting new occurrence patterns for bat species in North Dakota, examining the influence of habitat characteristics on community composition and foraging activity of bats, and quantifying habitat selection of female little brown bats, Myotis lucifugus. JJ's research involved a variety of methods, including passive acoustic monitoring, mistnetting, and automated telemetry systems. He finished his Ph.D. in Fall 2016 and is now an employee with the US Forest Service in Dickinson, ND.

Dr. Karina Montero: Karina's Ph.D. research focused on acoustic communication and group movement of Spix's disc-winged bats,Thyroptera tricolor, a neotropical bat species that relies on highly ephemeral leaf roosts. Her work included documenting the socials calls produced by bats when searching for leaf roosts, examining the relationship between contact call structure and genetic divergence in populations of T. tricolor separated by a mountain range, and assessing patterns of group cohesion while bats are foraging. She also studied contact calling in Myzopoda aurita, a bat species from Madagascar that exhibits convergence with T. tricolor in roosting within furled leaves. Karina is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ulm in Germany.

Dr. Paul Barnhart: Paul's Ph.D. research focused on documenting the presence of bat species in North Dakota and characterizing key habitat requirements for bats throughout the state. Paul also conducted passive acoustic monitoring for bat species that overwinter in western North Dakota. Paul finished his Ph.D. in 2014 and is now an Associate Professor at Dickinson State University in Dickinson, ND:

Lucas Bicknell: Lucas joined the lab in Fall 2009 after finishing his B.Sc. from NDSU. Lucas was co-advised by myself for the biology part of his thesis, and by Dr. Chris Biga for the social science part of his thesis. Lucas' masters research focused on two aspects of wind energy development: public attitudes toward wind energy development and wind facility impacts on local bat populations. This interdisciplinary thesis, focused on aspects of the biology and sociology of wind energy development, will hopefully spur future cross-disciplinary research. Lucas completed his M.Sc. in the Environmental and Conservation Sciences (ECS) Graduate Program in Spring 2012.