| Social and population biology of brown jays |
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In collaboration with Dean Williams, I am continuing a long-term study on brown jays, Cyanocorax morio, in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Long-term population studies in the tropics are relatively rare, and this study has the potential to contribute to our understanding of long-lived cooperatively breeding animals. We have developed a set of highly polymorphic microsatellite markers to further this work, and in the short-term we would like to determine why females mate with multiple males in this population, how short-distance dispersal affects fine scale population structure, and if restricted gene flow results in inbreeding. Brown jays are a colonizing species and have only occupied the Monteverde area since the forest was cleared in the 1940s and 50s. Ultimately, it will be exciting to conduct comparative studies with other brown jay populations occupying habitats that were part of their historic range.
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