Sandra L. Vehrencamp

Sandra Lee Vehrencamp (born February 11, 1948), is an American scientist, teacher, and mentor who specializes in Behavioral ecology, with a geographical focus on avian species in Costa Rica. She served as a faculty member of Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology and Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and taught graduate students while conducting research until retiring as of October 2010. She currently resides in Ithaca, New York, with her husband, Jack Bradbury. She went on to receive her bachelor's degree in zoology with honors from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970, and her Ph.D. in animal behavior from Cornell University in 1976. She grew up with this stigma surrounding her and still managed to attend the University of California at Berkeley for her bachelors and Cornell University for her doctorate. It is a widely used work that combines physics, chemistry, neurobiology, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and economics to delve deeply into animals and how they signal and communicate with one another. Its importance is highlighted by the fact that it has been cited more than 1,000 times. This study employed doubly labeled water to measure oxygen consumption for a period of about a week while observing the lek attendance and display rate of each male. The key findings were that 1) male display activity varied enormously, from zero to daily attendance with high display rate, 2) only the most active males achieved matings, and 3) more active males traveled further away from the lek each day to forage. The paper was touted as one of the first to test honest signaling theory using energetics. Vehrencamp studied the communal nesting behavior of the Groove-billed Ani in Costa Rica, and the conflict that occurs among the co-breeding pairs despite their overall cooperation. The egg-tossing behavior, which leads to a general advantage for the last-laying female, was a surprising finding at the time. In another study aimed at identifying the advantage to group as opposed to solitary pair breeding, she found that groups of two pairs had the highest fitness, benefitting from higher adult survival in groups while avoiding the excessive nestling competition and losses found in groups of 3 or more pairs. Based on these studies, Vehrencamp synthesized an optimization model that defined conditions under which group-living and cooperating individuals interact in a despotic versus and egalitarian manner. Vehrencamp's songbird communication work focused on species with male song repertoires and investigated why such repertoires should evolve and how they are used in communication. Her research group found that in both song sparrows and the banded wren, males shared some fraction of their song types with each of their neighbors, and strategically used song-type matching and switching between song types to signal different levels of aggressive escalation. The song sparrow study was among the first to employ interactive playback techniques to test the signaling function of song type matching, overlapping, and different switching patterns, as well as the significance of trill structure. Vehrencamp spent decades of her life studying behavioral ecology, and retired fully accomplished in 2010. This is the second most prestigious award given out by the ABS, and Vehrencamp's success is highlighted by the fact that the organization has been giving out exemplar awards since 1993 but only 4 out of 18 awards have been presented to women contributors. It is well known in the scientific community that being appointed a fellow in this organization is considered a great honor.

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