News

A full lab returns to Austin for SICB!
January 2023

Brett, Gena, Josh, Raven, and Tony travelled to Austin, Texas for the annual SICB conference. Brett presented his research on annual and individual variation (and perhaps plasticity?) of mass loss in breeding females, while Josh presented on the consequences of pre-fledging mass recession for physiological state and post-fledging performance. Tony went back to his roots and gave a talk on the enigma of egg-size, which was complimented by Raven's poster on individual variation and plasticity of egg size in starlings.

Congratulations to Katie Leonard!
July 2022

Katie successfully defended her MSc thesis on the 'Factors that fine-tune timing of egg-laying in European starlings' with focus on temperature and female social networks.

Tony receives 2021 lifetime achievement award
July 2021

Each year, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) presents a range of awards honouring members for their ornithological research and their service to the society. The 2021 Loye and Alden Miller Research Award, given annually for lifetime achievement in ornithological research, will be presented to Dr. Tony Williams, who has made major contributions to the study of avian physiology, focusing his research on physiological adaptations for breeding in birds, and ecotoxicology of wildlife species through his work with the Centre for Wildlife Ecology and Environment Canada.
https://americanornithology.org/congratulations-to-our-2021-aos-award-winners/

Congrats to Tony! The lab is all very proud of our overachieving supervisor.

Meanwhile on Middleton Island ...
April 20 2021

Catherine has been busy grubbing rhinoceros auklet burrows, and blood sampling birds, prepping for her experiment on Middleton Island, Alaska - but she took time off to help set up tree swallow nest boxes.

First chicks of the year
April 20 2021

A busy few days at Davistead. Four pre-dawn raids saw ~70 female EUST caught, identified or banded, and blood sampled. And four radio-tracking towers put up - ready for the last phase of the first brood action!

First EUST egg on Easter Sunday!
April 4 2021

But not the start of our fieldwork: Katie's pre-laying female-communication playback experiment has been running since March 15th. But, now we have eggs, no more 5.15 starts to get the recorders out! (at least until dawn raids). Some good times to start the 2021 season despite the early starts.

Gull fieldwork
January 2021

Almost 100 glaucous-winged gulls caught so far in January in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island - blood sampled (for physiological health and contaminant analysis) and GPS units attached to some. Great team effort by our ECCC collaborators (Alice, Nik, Anneka, Mark, Josh and Vivian) and my MSc student Hannah Hall (with a small contribution from yours truly). All to help assess the health of the Salish Sea, associated with TMX pipeline development.

Thanks Melissa!
December 2020

A socially-distanced, semi-farewell to Melissa (Vermette) our undergraduate research assistant and longest-serving lab member! Melissa is moving to Chemistry for the spring semester to do something with semi-conductors; but will no doubt be back to help with Williams' Lab assays.

Tony publishes his third book - "What Is a Bird?"
December 2020

Tony's hard work over the past year has culminated in the form of a beautiful coffee-table-style book on birds (with help from others - see URL below!). It covers everything from anatomy, physiology, behaviour, and ecology and is overflowing with gorgeous photos and illustrations. The Williams lab students are happy to have received their copies as early Christmas presents.

https://www.sfu.ca/biology/kudos-news/news/2020-williams-wiab.html

Congratulations to Josh and Brett
November 2020

Congratulations to Josh (Allen) and Brett (Hodinka) - here helping with Katie's soil sampling last summer - for passing their PhD candidacy exams with flying colours, and no conditions. I owe you both beers!

Hannah is awarded the Bert Brink Scholarship from BC Nature
June 2020

This award is given to "a post-secondary student enrolled in a graduate program in a discipline contributing to an awareness, appreciation, improved management of flora and fauna, conservation, restoration and understanding of our natural environment". Hannah is working on ecology of glaucous-winged gulls as bio-monitors of health of the Salish Sea. Great start to the MSc!!

First eggs of the season on April 7th
April 2020

The field season is well underway with 76 nests as of April 13th. It's a busy crew this year with 4(!) grad students working on starling projects. Thankfully we are able to keep up the work despite the global pandemic and are currently limiting trips to 2 people at a time. Meanwhile, the weather has been amazing!

Mason wins the Anne Vallée Scholarship
April 2020

Congratulations to Mason for receiving the Anne Vallée Ecological Fund Scholarship for his proposed research on "Ecotoxicological effects of persistent contaminants and bituminous petroleum on marine avifauna"!

The lab goes to SICB (and eats gourmet sausages)
January 2020

Tony, Brett, Josh, Jo, and Katie all travelled to Austin, Texas for the annual SICB conference making it a big group this year! Brett (new PhD student) presented his past MSc work on sleep deprivation in Lapland Longspurs and Jo (MSc student) presented her current research on starling parental care behaviour. Tony presented his ideas - along with Liam's research - on why some birds might not get fat.

Tony gets Graduate Supervisor Award
October 2019

Tony received the 2019 Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision at today's ceremony (here with the Dean of Grad Studies). Thanks to all graduate students, past and present, for making this the most fun part of my job!

Why don't (some) birds get fat?
October 2019

NSERC USRA student Liam Krider represented the Williams' Lab at yesterday's SFU undergraduate student poster competition, presenting his work on trying to make zebra finches fat (with fatty food) or thin (scaring them with an owl).

A busy two days in the Tox lab
May 2019

Studying the effects of diluted bitumen on embryo development in rhinoceros auklets and double-crested cormorants. With Mason, Leah, Lara and Rachel. Pretty intense at times but a very focused professional team!

Fieldwork
May 2019

Sometimes the pressures of supervising fieldwork just get overwhelming! Starlings already with chicks 8-10 days old. Jo's experiment (removing partners to investigate parental coordination) going well. Field crew this year a lot of fun.

Field season 2019 is underway
April 2019

A new field crew: Jo (MSc), Lara and Leah (both undergraduate USRA students). Main experiment will look at parental coordination in pairs of starlings. Its only April 16th and laying is pretty much over - dawn raids to catch all females over Easter weekend!

Dr. Jeff Yap Convocates!
October 2018

Dr Yap is officially in the house ... and now established in Auburn (note the matching colours!).

Jesse Kemp presents at SFU's Undergraduate Poster Competition
September 2018

Presenting her USRA research on costs of parental care with the awesome title, 'Chopping bits of bird's wings doesn't make raising chicks more difficult"

Alberta bound! Bidding a sad farewell to Francois
May 2018

Really enjoyed having Francois Criscuolo (CNRS-Strasbourg, France) staying for 2 weeks checking out our starling work for future collaborations. Turns out he's an awesome field assistant!! Lots of fieldwork, lots of good food, a bit of birding, and lots of telomere talk. Multiple papers to follow ..... He's now going to play with ground squirrels in the Rockies for a month.

Congratulations to Jeff Yap
May 2018

Who has been offered a post-doctoral position with Dr. Wendy Hood at Auburn. Jeff will be investigating how individual variation in mitochondrial function and capacity to undergo endoplasmic reticulum stress and unfolded protein response (what?!) is associated with variation in exercise performance and reproduction.

It's not all science
February 2018

The lab does 'Dine Out Vancouver" - except we had to settle for brunch. Good company and good food though (duck poutine, pork cheek hash) and a beer flight for the Prof!

HITTING UP SICB!!!!
January 2018

A small - but very high quality - lab attendance in San Francisco for SICB. Olivia wowed people with her work on nitrates and Hct, Jeff talked about costs of training and reproduction (and went shopping for post-docs) and even Tony did some stuff (do animals exercise ....?).

Congratulations to Chloe Boynton
September 2017

Chloe successfully defended her MSc thesis Friday on 'Breeding productivity, phenology and habitat use of two co-occurring aerial insectivores'

SURJ Poster Competition
September 2017

Three of our undergrads (Colleen, Olivia and Melissa) presented research at the first annual SURJ poster competition - and Olivia picked up 2nd place! Visit the SURJ facebook page to see more pictures!

The Ecology of Exercise
August 2017

The Special Issue of Integrative and Comparative Biology from our symposium at the New Orleans SICB meeting (January 2017) is now available here. Eleven papers on a wide range of topics on exercise, training and performance from humans to birds to fish. Also, check out our Virtual Issue in Functional Ecology on the same topic here.

Congratulations to Olga Lansdorp
August 2017

Olga successfully defended her MSc thesis today on 'Habitat drivers of Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) feeding behaviour and breeding productivity'

One of our undergraduate volunteers on the song project, Yasmin Khalili, now doing great biomedical research
August 2017

Yasmin first got involved in research when taking BISC 102 through her "amazing TA for the course" Allison Cornell! She helped us document avian song, nest building, and pre-copulatory behaviours as part of out European starling project. Read Yasmin's full story here.

Congratulations to Kate Gibson for publishing in Journal of Ornithology
May 2017

Congratulations to undergraduate Kate Gibson for getting her paper, ‘Intraclutch egg size variation is independent of ecological context among years in the European starling Sturnus vulgaris’, published in Journal of Ornithology. Kate's research experience started in her 2nd year with a BISC 498 in the Williams Lab followed by an Undergraduate Student Research Award, both on reproduction in European Starlings. Kate is also co-author on two published papers all from her work as an undergraduate. Read more about her accomplishments here.

Mitchell Serota successfully defends his MSc
May 2017

Congratulations to Mitchell Serota who successfully defended his MSc on 'Variation in Parental Care in European Starlings'. Mitch is off to Mexico for a 2-year position with the Peace Corps.

Undergrads from the Williams Lab start their summer USRA projects
May 2017

Congratulations to Colleen Gillespie and Olivia Tsai, both second year undergraduates who are working on NSERC USRA projects in this summer. Colleen will be collecting data on European Starlings to analyze timing of parental and nest failure. Olivia is validating the use of dietary nitrate to manipulate hematological parameters in zebra finch.

Allison Cornell successfully defends her PhD
Apr 2017

Congratulations to Allison Cornell who successfully defended her PhD on ‘Predictive Cues and Fitness Consequences of Breeding Phenology’. Allison now has an Assistant Professor position at Cedar Crest College.

Jeff Yap featured in Science: Birds don't need exercise to stay fit for epic flights
Jan 2017

How hard do animals work during routine activities (finding food, mates)? This was the topic of a recent symposium on 'The Ecology of Exercise" organised by Tony Williams at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in New Orleans. The symposium along with an interview with Jeff Yap is featured in Science. Read the article here.

New paper by Crossin and Williams explains weird penguin reproduction
Oct 2016

Crested penguins do a lot of weird stuff when it comes to reproduction: they lay two eggs but only ever rear one chick, the first egg is much smaller than then second egg, and sometimes females even kick the small egg out of the nest. This unique reproductive pattern has attracted the attention of biologists since the 1960 but has remained unresolved. In a recent paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society Glenn Crossin (ex-SFU post-doc now at Dalhousie) and Tony Williams suggest that the pattern of egg-size dimorphism across 16 penguin species can be explained by how much they overlap two "expensive" activities: swimming rapidly back to the breeding grounds from wintering areas, and egg formation, i.e. there is likely a "physiological conflict" between migration and reproduction. Read the article and National Geographic coverage.

Jeff Yap and Allison Cornell present at TA/TM day
Mar 2016

Jeff and Allison bring their teaching experience to TM/TA day, an orientation program for teaching assistants and markers. In their collaborative presentation, "Encouraging Active Learning in the Laboratory," they share some important tips on how to keep tutorials engaging and rewarding for students. Read more here.