Andrew Cronin
Human activity has irrevocably changed the earth, due in large part to climate change, deforestation, pollution, and urbanization. The selective pressures imposed by these anthropogenic changes have unfortunately been too steep to overcome for many species. For those species that are able to survive, these altered environments may still impart sublethal effects that are of evolutionary consequence. I will be working as part of the CITISENSE project to determine how communication systems are directly and indirectly impacted by urbanization, and how urban populations deal with, and possibly even exploit, urban environments. My work will seek to disentangle the intricate relationships between light, noise, mating decisions, and predatory pressures to identify underlying selective forces that cause phenotypic changes in urban populations. My work will focus on the tùngara frog, and will take place primarily in the Republic of Panama.
I have previously examined predator-prey interactions in songbirds and snakes as well as carried out conservation work on endangered bird species. My Master’s thesis focused on audio-visual integration and the role of heterogeneous habitats in anuran communication.