About the EEB Graduate Program: The Graduate Program in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB) at the University of Minnesota provides broad training in the general areas of ecology, evolution, and animal behavior, and specialized courses and research in vertebrate and invertebrate zoology; behavior and ethology; evolution; population genetics; molecular evolution; systematics; population, community and ecosystem ecology; global ecology, limnology, paleoecology, ecology of vegetation, and theoretical ecology. Graduate faculty members are drawn from the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior; Applied Economics; Civil Engineering; Entomology; Fisheries and Wildlife; Forest Resources; Genetics and Cell Biology; Geology and Geophysics; Horticultural Science; Plant Biology; Plant Pathology; Soil, Water, and Climate; Veterinary Pathobiology; and the Medical School. Students admitted to the Ph.D. program must have outstanding credentials and seek a career in research. Those admitted for the Master’s degree must also have a strong academic background, but may have a variety of career goals that require advanced training in ecology, evolution, or behavior. Both thesis and non-thesis options are available for Master’s candidates. Applications are considered only once per year, beginning immediately after the deadline in mid December and extending until support for acceptable applicants has been exhausted, which typically is by mid-April. New students are admitted to the graduate program only for the fall semester but may delay their start until the following spring semester. You can find out more about the EEB Graduate Program by clicking here.

About the Animal Communication Lab: Research in the Animal Communication Lab is focused on understanding both the mechanisms and the evolution of acoustic communication. Our current research uses anuran amphibians (frogs and toads) as model systems, but research on other taxa is not only possible, it is encouraged! Graduate students are considered "junior colleagues" and are expected to work closely with the head of the lab and their graduate committee in forming a plan of study and in designing a research project. Graduate students in the Animal Communication Lab have the options of collaborating on aspects of ongoing research projects in the lab or creating their own research projects. Below are some brief highlights about the lab....

Research Questions: The overarching goal of our research is to understanding what, why, and how information is conveyed in acoustic communication signals. We use lab and field experiments based on an integrative, multidisciplinary, hypothesis-driven approaches to address key questions about animal acoustic communication. You can read more about our research by clicking here. The general questions we are interested in addressing include...

• How do animals encode information about themselves in acoustic signals?
• How do animals acquire information about other conspecifics through the perception of acoustic signals?
• How do these processes function in natural habitats and noisy social environments?
• How have these processes evolved?

Techniques: Our approach is hypothesis-driven and experimental and our techniques involve...

• field recordings of vocalizing animals
• acoustical and statistical analyses of animal vocalizations
• field playback experiments, in which we broadcast real and computer-generated sounds to animals in their natural habitat
• laboratory playback experiments, in which we broadcast computer-generated sounds to animals in soundproof chambers
• electrophysiological experiments, in which we record neural responses to sounds in the animal's auditory system

Species: The animal species that we have worked with in the past or plan to work with in the future include...

• North American bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana)
• green frogs (Rana clamitans)
• wood frogs (Rana sylvatica)
• plains leopard frogs (Rana blairi)
• northern leopard frogs (Rana pipiens)
• spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer)
• boreal chorus frogs (Pseudacris maculata)
• Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis)
• eastern gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor)
• American toads (Bufo americanus)
• strawberry dart-poison frogs (Dendrobates pumilio)
• European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)

 

How to Join the Animal Communication Lab: If you think you might be interested in working toward a graduate degree in the Animal Communication Lab, here's what you can do next:

1. Familiarize yourself with our research:

• Read about our research on our webpage by clicking here.
• If one of our research topics interests you, then read a few of the lab publications related to the topic (PDFs can be found here).

2. Investigate the requirements and deadlines for applying to the Graduate Program in EEB (Application Deadlines are in mid_December):

• Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB)
• EEB Graduate Program

3. Investigate the requirements and deadlines for applying to various graduate fellowships:

• Fellowship opportunities in EEB

4. Start thinking about the type of research projects you might be interested in working on.

• What research questions are you interested in investigating?
• Do you want to collaborate on an ongoing project?
• Do you have ideas for your own project?
• Do you prefer to work in the lab or in the field?

5. Have answers to the following questions:

• What are your research interests? Are there any research questions that especially interest you? How do your interests fit with our group?
• What are your skills? Do you have training or experience with animal behavior, experimental design, computer programming, animal handling, statistics, or technical writing? Have you done any research? Have you published anything?
• What are your ambitions? What degree do you seek? Where do you expect this to lead?
• What's your academic record like? Where have you studied? With whom? What subjects have you studied? Is there anything that needs to be made up?
  

6. Contact Mark to discuss some of your ideas and the possibility of working in the lab.

Dr. Mark A. Bee
Campus mail: 100 Ecology
Office: 312 Ecology (map)
Phone: 612-624-6749
Fax: 612-624-6777
Email