Integrative Animal Behavior
Animal behavior is a dynamic discipline nourished by fields as varied as evolutionary biology, ecology, neurobiology, endocrinology, and molecular biology. We fuse mechanistic and evolutionary approaches to understand aggression, social dominance, sexual plasticity, social eavesdropping and mating behavior in a variety of freshwater, brackish, and marine fishes as well as some reptilian models (e.g., Anolis lizards). We also strive to acheive a balance between field and laboratory work in attempts to understand more fully the selection pressures that might guide behavioral variation both within and between species, and the environmental conditions under which behavioral plasticity might thrive. Sites of field work include Florida mangroves and California kelp forests, and right here in Alabama; we will soon be ready to roll in Nicaraguan lakes! On the flip side, we explore behavioral variation, and its mechanistic underpinnings, under controlled conditions in the laboratory. Our laboratory is a truly collaborative enterprise - undergraduates, graduate students, and Dr. Earley work together and with other laboratories in the USA and internationally towards the end of linking pieces of the behavioral jigsaw puzzle.
Information for Prospective Students
If you are interested in joining the Earley lab as a graduate student, click here. If you are interested in joining the Earley lab as an undergraduate student, click here.
Graduate student information, expectations, and timeline (very important information!) can be found by clicking this link.
Want to learn more about the Earley lab? Watch a video created by Megan Galaviz here.
Must read articles for prospective and current graduate and undergraduate research students (credit to the authors of these spectacular resources! #3-#8 were found on the website of Dr. Theodore Garland, Jr in the Department of Biology at UC-Riverside):
#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8
Lab Information
Earley lab reading group is held weekly, and typically lasts between 1-2 hours: schedule and papers are available here.
Earley lab animal husbandry, ordering procedures, and field collection information is available here.
For a list of student grants, visit this website.
Lab News (scroll down!)
Image courtesy of Angela Earley (click to see more!)
February 2012: Congratulations to Sara Vaughn for receiving the James D. and Donjette Yarbrough Scholarship for leadership, academic excellence, and character!
January 2012: Congratulations to Mark Garcia - this year's recipient of the Inge and Ilouise Hill Fellowship for excellence in research and teaching!
January 2012: Congratulations to Tom Bertalan for landing interviews for graduate programs at Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Texas at Austin, and Vanderbilt University (wow!!).
January 2012: Congratulations to Candice Hovell for her acceptance into the graduate program at Georgia Institute of Technology!
January 2012: Congrats to grad students Mark Garcia, Amanda Hanninen, Adam Fuller, Liz Lee, Shane Stanley, and Michael Cotrone for delivering beautiful presentations at this year's Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology meeting, which featured a symposium on the mangrove rivulus!
August 2011: Welcome Kristy Marson, a new PhD student in the lab and Caleb Anderson, a new Masters student in the lab!
December 2011: Congratulations to Alexandra Waits for being selected as a 2012 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergradate Research Scholar!
December 2011: Congratulations to Ryan Jones who was accepted to participate in the University of Florida's 9th Annual Marine Resources Population Dynamics Workshop, which will be held at the Mote Tropical Research Lab on Summerland Key from March 4-10th!
November 2011: Congratulations to Boopathy Sivaraman for successfully defending his Masters thesis!
October 2011: Muchos congratulations to Kay Rainey who has been accepted to medical school at the University of Alabama Birmingham! Nice work! Well deserved!
August 2011: Ryan heads out with Benjamin Perlman and a group from Wake Forest University for another rivulus collecting trip - this time in beautiful Belize (Long Caye and Sandbore Key!). Crocs, mosquitoes, and biting ants only livened up a wildly successful trip!
July 2011: Mark Garcia, Adam Fuller, Amanda Hanninen, and Ryan present at the Joint Meeting of the International Ethological Conference and Animal Behavior Society held at Indiana University.
July 2011: Annie Lennox, Josh Aquino, and Will Payne complete the HHMI summer research program with beautiful posters at the end-of-term symposium.
June 2011: Amanda Hanninen, Mark Garcia and Ryan finish a wildly successful rivulus collecting trip in the Florida Keys in collaboration with Yuying Hsu and her two students (Ching Chang and Yuyun Huang) and Benjamin Perlman, a PhD student in the laboratory of Miriam Ashley-Ross at Wake Forest University.
June 2011: Ryan becomes a Review Editor for the journal Frontiers in Aquatic Physiology.
May 2011: Congratulations to Gabriell Davis who has been accepted to the Masters Program in the Department of Biology at the University of Mississippi to work with Dr. Christopher Leary!
May 2011: Stephanie Robinson and Matthew Honkanen are off to participate in a Tropical Plant Diversity studies abroad program under the direction of Dr. John Clark!
May 2011: Ryan becomes an Associate Editor for the journal Behaviour.
April 2011: Amanda Hanninen has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship! Thrilling!
April 2011: Elizabeth Lee and Griff Hall were finalists for Best Poster Presentation in the Natural Sciences at the 2011 University of Alabama Undergraduate Research Conference!
April 2011: Chelsea Raulerson was a finalist and won third place for Best Poster Presentation in the Natural Sciences at the 2011 University of Alabama Undergraduate Research Conference!
April 2011: Kay Rainey, Elizabeth Lee, Tom Bertalan, Griffin Hall, Jake Powers, Chelsea Raulerson, Robertson Pearce, Alexander Thompson, Matthew May, Richard Morris, Dan Whittelsey, and Candice Hovell presented poster and platform presentations at the 2011 University of Alabama Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities Conference.
April 2011: Chelsea Raulerson has been awarded a Department of Biological Sciences Michael L. McDaniel Memorial Scholarship for academic excellence.
March 2011: Matthew May has received the prestigious 2011 Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award, which recognizes the University of Alabama's best research activity by an undergraduate. Bravo!
March 2011: Congratulations to Elizabeth Lee who has been accepted to the University of Central Florida Professional Science Masters in Conservation Biology Program and to the University of Alabama Biological Sciences Masters Program!
March 2011: Congratulations to Ian Kimbrough who has been accepted to, and will attend, the University of Alabama Birmingham Medical School Neuroscience Ph.D. Program!
March 2011: Congratulations to Susanna Tubbs who has been accepted to, and will attend, the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Medicine!
March 2011: Congratulations to Alexander Thompson who has been accepted to a Summer Studies in Marine Ecology course in the Bahamas for Summer 2011!
March 2011: Congratulations to Mark Nuttall who will attend the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Dentistry!
February 2011: Congratulations to Richard Morris who has been accepted to, and will attend, the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Dentistry!
January 2011: Mark Garcia (Ph.D. student) is the recipient of the 2011 University of Alabama, Department of Biological Sciences Graham Prize for excellence in research and teaching!
January 2011: Congratulations to Kyle Zigelsky who has been accepted to, and will attend, the Yale University Physician Assistant Program. Well deserved!
January 2011: Grad students and Doc Earley present at the 2011 Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology conference in Salt Lake City, UT.
January 2011: Welcome Amanda Hanninen - a new Masters student in the Earley lab!
December 2010: Annie Lennox & Joshua Aquino are accepted as 2011 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Research Fellows!
December 2010: Congraulations to Lana Stuart for earning her baccalaureate degree!
October 2010: Amanda Hanninen & Ryan Earley are awarded a Fisheries Society of the British Isles grant entitled Metabolic and endocrine plasticity in response to environmental stressors in the 'clonal' mangrove killifish!
August 2010: Adam Fuller & Ryan Earley are awarded a Section 6 (Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund) grant entitled A behavioral approach to understanding population fragmentation of bluenose shiners (Pteronotropis welaka) in Alabama!
August 2010: Welcome Shane Stanley - a LSAMP Bridge to Doctorate Ph.D. Student!
July 2010: Amanda Hanninen, Candice Hovell, and Sherry Le developed fantastic posters for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute symposium, marking a tremendously productive summer research program!
June 2010: Adam Zelickson (post-bacc) has been accepted and will attend medical school at the University of Alabama Birmingham beginning Fall 2010!
June 2010: Alumnus Erin Roberts has been accepted and will attend the Charlotte School of Law beginning Fall 2010!
May 2010: Matthew May (undergraduate) is accepted into University of Alabama Birmingham's Summer Health Enrichment Program!
May 2010: Undergrads Kyle Zigelsky, Jake Turner, Carrie Smith, Roper Elrod, Megan Galaviz, Susanna Tubbs, Andrea Murrell, Sherry Le, Ben Brown, and Jimmy Wymer have earned their baccalaureate degrees...Congratulations!!
April 2010: Boopathy Sivaraman (Masters student) receives a Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid!
April 2010: Megan Galaviz (undergraduate) lands a 6-month Animal Behavior Professional Internship at Disney World's Animal Kingdom!!
April 2010: Amanda Hanninen (undergraduate) is a finalist for Best Poster Presentation - Natural Sciences at UA's annual Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities Conference.
April 2010: Undergraduates Matthew May, Amanda Hanninen, Candice Hovell, Josh Aquino and post-baccalaureate Adam Zelickson deliver fantastic presentations at the annual Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities Conference at the University of Alabama.
March 2010: Boopathy Sivaraman (Masters Student) wins the Grand Prize for platform presentations in the Natural Sciences at the 13th Annual Research & Thesis Conference at the University of Alabama.
March 2010: Stephanie Wong (Ph.D. Student), Mark Garcia (Masters Student), and Boopathy Sivaraman (Masters student) deliver presentations at the 13th Annual Research & Thesis Conference at the University of Alabama.
March 2010: Kelly Weinersmith (Ph.D. Student, University of California, Davis) visits the lab to refine her hormone collection/analysis technique and to train our eyes in parasite detection!
March 2010: Cheng-Yu Li, and Shu-Ping Huang finish their monstrous gene expression experiment and, sadly, return to National Taiwan Normal University (will they be back? Stay tuned..).
March 2010: Nicaragua crew (Stephanie Wong, Adam Fuller, Kyle Zigelsky & Doc Earley) returns from Lake Xiloa research expedition 90% unscathed, after 67 dives, 187 behavioral observations, and some nifty tricks with a lift bag.
March 2010: Amanda Hanninen (undergraduate student) is accepted into the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Research Internship Program!
March 2010: Candice Hovell (undergraduate student) is accepted into the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Research Internship Program!
March 2010: Sherry Le (undergraduate student) is accepted into the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Research Internship Program!
March 2010: Stephanie Wong, Adam Fuller (Ph.D. students) & Kyle Zigelsky (undergraduate student) are about to embark with Dr. Earley on a research diving trip to Lakes Xiloa and Apoyo in western Nicaragua to search for convict cichlids and evaluate their field ecology and behavior.
March 2010: Megan Galaviz (undergraduate student) has won first prize in the Capstone Creed Week photo contest at UA!
February 2010: Kyle Zigelsky (undergraduate student) is awarded a research scholarship through the Honors College at UA!
February 2010: Boopathy Sivaraman (Masters student) receives the Inge and Ilouise Hill Research Fellowship!
January 2010: Adam Fuller (Ph.D. student) receives a Birmingham Audubon Society Walter F. Coxe Research Fund award!
January 2010: Stephanie Wong (Ph.D. student) receives a Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid!
December 2009: Amanda Hanninen, Matthew May, Mark Nuttall, and Kyle Zigelsky (undergraduate students) embark on a mini-internship at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in collaboration with Dr. David Mitchell and Dr. Andre Fernandez!
November 2009: Boopathy Sivaraman (Masters student) is accepted in the PharmD Program at the Harrison School of Pharmacy - Auburn University!
December 2009: Jake Turner (undergraduate student) is accepted in the School of Dentistry at University of Alabama, Birmingham!
December 2009: Carrie Smith (undergraduate student) is accepted in the School of Optometry at University of Alabama, Birmingham!
July 2009: Sarah Kennedy (undergraduate student) is accepted in the Masters of Biotechnology program at the University of Alabama Birmingham!
June 2009: Boopathy Sivaraman (Masters student) is elected forum convener by the graduate students in the Department of Biological Sciences.
June 2009: Mark Garcia (Masters student) & Stephanie Wong (Ph.D. student) participate in the Champalimaud Foundation Neuroscience Program Symposium on Social Modulation of Behavior; Lisbon, Portugal
May 2009: Stephanie Wong (Ph.D. student) is awarded the Graduate Council Fellowship at the University of Alabama
May 2009: Jake Turner (undergraduate student) earns the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Undergraduate Research Internship to conduct lab and field work at the Weeks Bay, Alabama, National Estuarine Research Reserve under the direction of Dr. Behzad Mortazavi
Surf the page to see what our undergraduate and graduate students are up to. You'll also find more detailed descriptions of the projects currently under way!
The website should, with any luck, be fully functional sometime soon. Come back to visit! Last updated March 3, 2011.