Benjamin Taft

Ph.D. student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst

 

  (I am on the right, Justin Schuetz is on the left)

 

 I am interested in how individual decisions affect population-level patterns (behavioral ecology),

and how population-level patterns affect the fate of lineages (evolutionary ecology).

 

Previous work:

o Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) life history, dispersal, and singing behavior with David W. Winkler

o Brood parasitism in African finches (Estrilda astrild and Vidua chalybeata ) with Justin G. Schuetz

 

Current work:

o The ecological role of post-juvenile song learning in Tree Swallows. with Jeff Podos

o Physiological constraints on timing of breeding in Tree Swallows. with Wink

o A phylogeny of hexapods using 3 genes (COXI, ef1- a, and 18S) from all hexapod taxa in Genbank. with Benjamin Normark