I'm a behavioral ecologist interested in sexual selection, animal communication, and collective behavior. I completed a masters degree studying agonistic signaling in colobus monkeys at the University of Calgary, followed by a PhD at UT Austin studying frog and katydid choruses. I'm currently a Voss Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute at Brown for the Environment and Society in the Fuxjager lab.

My PhD research focused on understanding the sensory drivers of male call-timing decisions, and the consequences of these call-timing interactions for female choice. Túngara frogs have proven to be a uniquely tractable system for addressing these questions, and I've enjoyed using data science approaches to discern meaningful patterns in the (seemingly) chaotic din of their dense choruses. This research yielded several novel insights into the mechanisms underpinning acoustic collective behavior, and the dynamics arising from them. 

Currently, I am continuing my work with túngara frogs, though I am focusing on different questions. I am investigating linkages between inter-male variation in physiology and muscle performance, and inter-male variation in call properties salient to choosing females. Additionally, I am investigating how changes in social structure brought about by urbanization influence how sexual selection proceeds in different túngara frog populations.

Click here for my Google Scholar page

Published

• • Larter, L.C., Ryan, M. J, (2025). The variability and malleability of frog call-timing mechanisms are neglected in traditional call-timing models. Integrative and Comparative Biology. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaf041

  • Somjee, U. et al (including Larter, L.C.) (2025) Sexual selection, energetics and ecological innovation: How sexual selection diversifies the landscape of behavior, morphology and physiology. Accepted at Integrative and Comparative Biology.

  • Larter, L. C., Ryan, M. J. (2024). Sensory-motor tuning allows generic features of conspecific acoustic scenes to guide rapid, adaptive, call-timing responses in túngara frogs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.0992 

  • Larter, L. C., Ryan, M. J. (2024) Túngara frog call-timing decisions arise as internal rhythms interact with fluctuating chorus noise. Behavioral Ecology (this article was selected as the ‘Editor’s Choice’ for the July 2024 issue) . 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

Submitted

• Larter, L. C., Cushing, C. W., Ryan, M. J. (submitted) Cadences of the collective: conspecific stimulation patterns Interact with endogenous rhythms to cue socially mediated response shifts. Submitted to the Journal of Experimental Biology. 

          BioRxiv Preprint: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.03.657715 

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

Click the 'pop-out' button to view my recent CV.

My email address can be found in my CV.