Several students and faculty members from the Animal Behavior Program presented their research at the Southwestern Psychological Comparative Association (SCPA) annual meeting held in conjunction with SWPA in San Antonio April 7-9.  Psychology Professor Jesse Purdy presented a paper titled “Exploring the Interaction Between New Technology and Old Ideas.” Purdy and seniors Elizabeth Anne Wilson and Alex Hall presented a paper titled “Retention of Learned Association following Metamorphosis in African Claw-toed Frogs.” Senior Carissa Winland and Psychology Professor Fay Guarraci presented a paper titled “Nice Guys Finish Last”: Mate Choice, Reproductive Success, and Testosterone in Rats. Senior Morgan Mingle presented a paper titled “Chimpanzee See; Chimpanzee Do: A Study of Social Learning and Handedness,” which was done in collaboration with William Hopkins from Agnes Scott College, Sarah Brosnan from Georgia State University, Lydia Hopper, Susan Lambeth, and Steven Schapiro from The University of Texas- M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Mingle also presented a paper titled “Acoustic Preference for World Music in Chimpanzees,” which was done with Victoria Horner and Timothy Eppley from The Living Links Center at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Frans B. M. de Waal from Emory University. 

Morgan Mingle, a junior majoring in animal behavior, was selected to participate in a research program at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, which is the nation’s oldest and largest primate center. Mingle will be working on a project involving chimpanzees and vocal behavior with Frans de Waal, the C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology at Emory University and director of Living Links Center. Mingle was one of 11 undergraduates selected out of more than 600 applicants to participate in this program.  

Animal behavior major Jessica Bolton was one of two winners of the H. Wayne Ludvigson Memorial Student Prizes for best student paper presentations at the Southwestern Comparative Psychological Association annual meeting held in Dallas April 8-10. Bolton received the award for her talk titled “‘Who’s Your Daddy’: Kin Recognition in Prepubescent and Adult Rats,” which was based on a paper she wrote with Brittany Ford, Carissa Winland and Professor Fay Guarraci.

Several other psychology and animal behavior students presented papers at the Southwestern Comparative Psychological Association annual meeting held in Dallas April 8-10. Morgan Mingle, Alexander Hall, Bolton and Guarraci presented a paper titled “The Paradoxical Effects of Morphine on Sexual Motivation in Female Rats,” Mingle and Professor Jesse Purdy presented a paper titled “Conditioned Anti-Predatory Behavior in Mulloway,” and Winland, Ford, Bolton and Guarraci presented a paper titled “Chronic Exposure to Methamphetamine Affects Sexual Behavior in Female Rats,” which was written in collaboration with Charles Haycox, Mark Maynard, Douglas Clements, Christine Wise and Professor Russell Frohardt from St. Edward’s University. Winland, Ford, Bolton and Guarraci also were collaborators on a paper titled “MePD Intracranial Infusions of Methamphetamine Have no Effect on Female Sexual Behavior,” which was presented by the same team from St. Edward’s.

Romi Burks, associate professor of biology, recently had a paper titled “Pink Eggs and Snails: Field oviposition patterns of an invasive snail, Pomacea insularum, indicate a preference for an invasive macrophyte” published in the Shallow Lakes volume of the peer-reviewed journal Hydrobiologia. The paper was written with senior Matt Trawick and 2009 graduate Colin Kyle, who is now a graduate student in ecology and evolution at The University of Chicago. Burks, Kyle, Trawick and 2009 graduate James McDonough also recently finalized a paper for the Texas Journal of Science titled “Population dynamics of an established reproducing population of the invasive apple snail (Pomacea insularum) in suburban southeast Houston, Texas.”