Honorable Mention: You Talkin' To Me?

Photo by Morgan Slevin, graduate student, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science

The Northern Cardinal is the original “Angry Bird” and for good reason. Males are highly territorial, meaning they will aggressively defend their territory and its resources to protect what’s theirs. Males with the best territory have the best resources, such as a fertile female, good nesting sites, plentiful food resources and minimal predators. The main way males defend a territory is by broadcasting songs that communicate aggressive intent, or by chasing away other males that intrude into their territory. Part of my research entails helping undergraduate students test hypotheses about how males communicate with one another. They do this by determining what qualities in these territorial songs they find the most threatening by quantifying aggressiveness during social interactions.