What we can learn from sparrows, starlings, and lizards
To some people, house sparrows, Eurasian tree sparrows, European starlings, and brown anoles are cute little animals. Others see these non-native species more negatively, as invaders that compete with and displace native species like purple martins, Eastern bluebirds, and green anoles. To us, they are an invaluable resource that allows us to improve our understanding of the impacts of stress on animals and humans, and reveal what allows wildlife to thrive in new environments.
Our lab studies how different neurotransmitters and hormones help wild animals successfully cope with environmental challenges from predators to disease. The hormone and neurotransmitter pathways we study are very similar in in all vertebrates from fish to birds to mammals, so sparrow, starling, and lizard research can help us understand how these systems work in humans and other animals.
Lab News
Nov 2024
Four former undergraduates from the lab who are now in MD, PhD or MD/PhD programs were highlighted in a very nice feature story on the LSU College of Science blog. We are so proud of our amazing undergraduate researchers and it is an honor and a privilege for us to help train Louisiana’s next generation of doctors and scientists.
Kaitlin Couvillion, former lab member and current LSU Health New Orleans MD/PhD student.
Eve Gautreaux, former lab member and current neuroscience PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania.
Allison Cannon, former lab member and current LSU Health New Orleans medical student.
Ayushi Patel, former lab member and current PhD student at LSU Health New Orleans.
Nov 2024
Four members of the Lattin Lab are collaborators on the first ever ManyBirds project examining aversive behavior towards novelty (neophobia) in 136 different bird species! Overall, we found that neophobia was higher in some bird families than others, that birds with a specialized diet were more neophobic than those with a broader diet, and that migratory species were more neophobic than non-migratory species. You can read the preprint here.
Color-coded latency difference scores (latency to touch food in the novel object condition minus latency in the control condition; measured in seconds) for all bird species included in ManyBirds study 1 (n = 136).
Nov 2024
Congratulations to lab member Ella Cochran, who successfully defended her Senior Honors Thesis on gene expression in three behaviorally relevant brain regions in Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus). Ella did an amazing job with a really technically difficult project, looking at how a bird’s sex and behavior affected what genes were “turned on” in the brain.
Nov 2024
Members of the lab with their painted but not yet fired celebratory mugs.
The 6th annual Lattin Lab retreat was a lovely day involving board games, a potuck brunch, and the painting of celebratory mugs at BellyFire Pottery Studios.
Aug 2024
Three new students joined the lab this month! PhD student Katie Stewart will be studying neophobia in house sparrows, PhD student Allison Morales Palomino will be focusing on host-parasite interactions in free-living European starlings, and LSU LAGNiAppE postbaccalaureate scholar Elena Liebl is leading a research project examining gene expression, behavior, and color in anole lizards. Welcome Allison, Elena, and Katie!
Aug 2024
Congratulations to undergraduate lab member Caroline Henry, who is the recipient of a 2024-2025 LSU Discover Research Grant to investigate microbiome differences between native green anoles and invasive brown anoles!
Undergraduate researcher Caroline Henry, one of seven recipients of a 2024-2025 LSU Discover Research Grant!
Aug 2024
Dr. Lattin attended summer graduation so she could hood Dr. Keegan Stansberry, our second PhD from the lab! Despite challenging field conditions, Keegan collected two years of data testing important hypotheses about how climate-related stressors affect wild birds and basically established a brand new field system from scratch. We are all going to miss him very much, but are very proud of him and his accomplishments.
Dr. Lattin poses with the new Dr. Stansberry at LSU Summer 2024 graduation. Congrats Keegan!
Aug 2024
Can neophobia help explain invasion success? Our new paper in Biological Invasions found that Eurasian tree sparrows were much less likely to eat new foods & habituated to novel objects more slowly than their more successful invasive relative, the house sparrow. This research was also featured in a news story by a student journalist when it was presented at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in January.
Although they look a lot alike, are closely related, and were both introduced to North America in the 1800s, the house sparrow has spread everywhere in North America, whereas the Eurasian tree sparrow remains restricted to a small area around St. Louis Missouri.
July 2024
More evidence for social learning in the gregarious house sparrow! Our new paper in Frontiers in Bird Science led by PhD graduate Dr. Melanie Kimball-Toups shows that house sparrows habituate to novel objects near food over the course of three weeks, but not when exposed to sparrow alarm calls during the second week of trials. This research suggests that part of the secret of the house sparrow’s success as an adaptable urban and invasive species might be their ability to learn about novel objects from listening to each others’ calls.
House sparrows are a highly social species and often found in large flocks. New research from our lab shows that they learn about novel objects partly by listening to the calls of other sparrows. Image from Wikimedia Commons; photo taken by Raju Kasambe.
July 2024
Many congratulations to the lab’s newly minted PhD, Keegan Stansberry, who did a fantastic job presenting his PhD work on how climate-related stressors impact developing songbirds. We are all so proud of him and his amazing research!
Keegan Stansberry presents the three chapters of his dissertation examining the effects of climate-related developmental stressors on free-living European starlings.
The new Dr. Stansberry and a few of his proud lab mates in the Lattin Lab!
A new postdoctoral researcher joined the lab this month! Dr. Tori Coutts did her PhD at Auburn University and will be working on projects related to how social learning changes the brain and how the environment impacts reproductive trade-offs. Welcome Tori!
May 2024
May 2024
Dr. Lattin attended spring graduation events and had the opportunity to hood both her Senior Honors Thesis undergraduate student Kenedi Lynch (who has been in the lab for four wonderful years) and her first PhD student to graduate, Melanie Kimball-Toups! We are so proud of all of our lab alumni, including Maggie Dunn and Ria Ferdaus, who are graduating this spring. We will miss you but look forward to seeing everything that comes next for you all!
Dr. Lattin poses with the new Dr. Kimball-Toups at LSU Spring 2024 graduation. Melanie will start a postdoc this fall at UC Davis, where she will study bee cognition. (Yes, this means that Melanie will have studied the birds and the bees!!) Congrats Melanie!
Dr. Lattin and former lab member Ria Ferdaus, who graduated with an Honors distinction. Congrats Ria!
Dr. Lattin and undergraduate lab member Kenedi Lynch, who graduated with College Honors and also received recognition from the LSU Distinguished Communicator and Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher programs. Congrats Kenedi!
Kenedi Lynch accepts her Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher award from the LSU Discover program.
April 2024
Lattin Lab researchers Emily Stelling and Kenedi Lynch presented preliminary findings from their research in the lab at the LSU Discover Day Undergraduate Research Conference and both did a wonderful job! Many other lab members turned out to support them and to help judge other students’ posters and talks.
LSU LAGNiAppE Postbaccalaureate Scholar Emily Stelling presents a poster about hormones and behavior in green and brown anole lizards.
Lattin Lab members who attended LSU Discover Day.
Undergraduate Kenedi Lynch presents data from her Senior Honors Thesis research about brain inflammation in response to avian malaria in sparrows.
April 2024
Congrats to undergraduate researcher Kenedi Lynch, who defended her Senior Honors Thesis in the lab on tissue-specific cytokine responses to avian malaria. It has been a joy and a privilege for us all to work with Kenedi over the past 4 years. Kenedi also received the Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Award this month. She exemplifies undergraduate research at its best!
Kenedi Lynch accepts her Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research award. Geaux Kenedi!
Undergraduate Kenedi Lynch gives her Senior Honors Thesis defense.
March 2024
Congratulations to Melanie Kimball-Toups, who successfully defended her PhD from the Lattin Lab on the effects of environmental perturbations on house sparrow neurobiology and behavior! We are all so proud of our new Dr. Kimball-Toups, and can’t wait to see what she does next!
The new Dr. Melanie Kimball-Toups gives her dissertation defense talk on her PhD research in the Lattin Lab.
Melanie and spouse Ben Toups (also a new PhD from the Brown lab at LSU!) celebrate their accomplishment with chocolate cake.
A new paper out from Dr. Lattin and some of her colleagues from the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine shows that corticosterone can be non-invasively measured in molted snake skin-sheds in the endangered Louisiana pine snake, and that it may reflect some measures of snake health and stress.
March 2024
March 2024
Dr. Lattin presents about the lab’s neophobia research at ISAE 2024 in Meerut, India.
Dr. Lattin attended the 2024 International Symposium on Avian Endocrinology in Meerut, India, and presented some of the lab’s recent work on neophobia in house sparrows. She had a great time hearing about new developments in the field of avian endocrinology and meeting scientists from all over the world!
March 2024
Dr. Lattin has been selected to receive a 2024 Emerging Scholar Rainmaker Award in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics! Each year, six Rainmakers are selected by the Louisiana State University Council on Research based on outstanding scholarship, creative activity, and work with impacts on the academic community and beyond.
February 2024
Dr. Lattin was a co-guest-editor (with Dr. Richmond Thompson and Dr. Yvon Delville) of a special issue of the journal Hormones and Behavior on Contributions of comparative approaches to behavioral neuroendocrinology. The full issue can be found here, and the introduction to the special issue, which argues that biodiversity matters in the lab, can be found here.
January 2024
Several members of the Lattin Lab attended and presented work at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology held in Seattle, Washington. Overall, lab members presented two posters and three talks at the meeting, and also found time for a quick hike in Seattle’s Discovery Park. Undergraduate Kenedi Lynch was awarded second prize for Best Student Poster in the Division of Ecoimmunology and Disease Ecology, and graduate student Marquise Henry was awarded a SICB Grant In Aid of Research for his work on the neurobiology of neophobia behavior.
Lattin Lab members on a hike at Seattle's Discovery Park.
Lattin Lab undergraduate researcher Kenedi Lynch with her (award winning!) poster on her Senior Honors Thesis research at the 2024 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in Seattle, Washington.
Lattin Lab PhD student Keegan Stansberry presents a poster on one of his dissertation projects at the 2024 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in Seattle, Washington.