behavior of the North American Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) and nest ... I
graduated from Monarch High School in 2010 with Cum Laude honors, and as a
...
MATT ABERLE PROFILE AND RESEARCH INTERESTS
SKILLS & ABILITIES
I am a graduate of the University of Colorado with a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. My interests include animal behavior and how behavior may or may not be influenced by disease and parasitism. My honors thesis research looked at the relationship between parental feeding behavior of the North American Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) and nest ectoparasites, which is currently in review at the Journal of Avian Biology. •
Passerine Banding and Identification
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Mist netting
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Blood and Feather sampling
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Nest searching
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Predator surveys
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Small mammal trapping and handling
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Vegetation Surveying
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Setting up and operating video cameras in the field
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Spectroscopy
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DNA extraction
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PCR
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Data organization and entry
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Behavioral Observation
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Monitoring of multiple research field sites
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Programming in R
WORK AND
RESEARCH ASSISTANT, SAFRAN LAB
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
University of Colorado at Boulder, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology May 2012 – May 2014, May 2015 – August 2015 As a research assistant in the Safran lab, I was a full time member of the summer field research crew banding and monitoring populations of Barn Swallows around Boulder County. I learned how to properly band and collect morphological data, feather samples, and blood samples from wild birds. This position also required collecting extensive observational data. In the lab, I worked about 20 hours per week doing tasks including: data organization and entry, organization and analysis of feather samples using spectroscopy, extracting DNA from blood samples, and running PCR to determine the sex of nestlings. I also helped manage and care for the lab’s captive population of Zebra Finches. In my second field season I also designed and carried out my own independent field study to write an honor’s thesis. Beginning in the May of 2015 I will be collaborating with the Safran lab as a research associate on a new study using proximity loggers in order to construct social
networks for the barn swallows. We will then conduct phenotypic manipulations by darkening some of the males and seeing how their social networks change. FIELD TECHNICIAN, CHALFOUN LAB University of Wyoming June 2014 – August 2014 As a full time field technician in Pinedale, WY for Dr. Tracey Johnson, a post-‐doc in the Chalfoun lab at the University of Wyoming, I was in charge of three different plots of sagebrush that are being actively used for natural gas extraction by fracking. On each of these plots I searched for nests of several different bird species, and once I found the nests, I then monitored them to see if they were predated or not to see if there is a correlation between fracking and nest predation. This research has implications for future conservation work and policy. On some of these nests I also set up and monitored video cameras that were used to try and catch some of these predation events on film. As part of this research I also did predator surveys to monitor animals like ground squirrels and chipmunks who typically predated our monitored nests. I also did small mammal trapping where I would set and bait traps and then process captured mammals by getting morphological measurements, pit-‐tagging, and sometimes collecting blood samples. The last part of the field season involved doing vegetation surveys around shrubs that contained nests. This involved determining shrub densities, estimating shrub heights and vigor, as well as conducting line intercepts to estimate shrub cover.
EDUCATION
MONARCH HIGH SCHOOL Louisville, CO Cum Laude Honors I graduated from Monarch High School in 2010 with Cum Laude honors, and as a member of the National Honor Society. UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER Boulder, CO Cum Laude Honors I am a graduate of CU as an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major. I finished my honors thesis in spring 2014 and graduated with a 3.2 GPA and Cum Laude honors in May 2014. On the GRE I scored a 158 on Verbal Reasoning, 150 on Quantitative Reasoning, and a 5 on Analytical Writing.
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PUBLICATIONS
Aberle, M.A., Hund, A.K., Safran, R.J. “Do parents alter provisioning rates across the nestling period in response to ectoparasites: an experimental study in the North American barn swallow Hirundo rustica erythrogaster” Journal of Avian Biology. In Review
HONORS AND GRANTS
Cum laude honors, Monarch High School National Honor Society
University of Colorado UROP Research Grant NSF REU grant Cum Laude honors, University of Colorado at Boulder
TEACHING EXPERRIENCE
TEACHING ASSISTANT University of Colorado at Boulder I served as an undergraduate TA for the General Biology course EBIO 1220 where I attended lectures and provided assistance during in class activities and discussions, in addition to helping proctor tests. I also held regular office hours to answer questions about lectures and homework. I also helped run exam review sessions.
OUTREACH
REFERENCES
As a member of the Safran Lab I took part in an outreach program with Manhattan Middle School in Boulder. We took the school’s science club out to a field site where we demonstrated how to catch and band Barn Swallows and also taught them about the basic reproduction and migration of the Barn Swallows. REBECCA SAFRAN P.I., Safran Lab Phone: 303-‐735-‐1495 Email:
[email protected] Website: http://safranlab.weebly.com/
AMANDA HUND PhD Student, Safran Lab Phone: 320-‐905-‐5040 Email:
[email protected] JOEY HUBBARD PhD Student, Safran Lab Phone: 303-‐905-‐8706 Email:
[email protected]
TRACEY JOHNSON Post-‐Doc, Chalfoun Lab Phone: 503-‐539-‐1076 Email:
[email protected]
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