GRUNST BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY & ECOPHYSIOLOGY LAB
Indiana State University
Lab News
Grad Student Jackson Kinder Wins Indiana Chapter of the Wildlife Society Award
Grunst lab MS student Jackson Kinder was awarded a grant through the Indiana Chapter of the Wildlife Society for his work on the effects of noise pollution on incubation behavior in song sparrows.
The selection committee noted that the competition was intense and that Jackson's work stood out for being both scientifically innovative and having direct management implications for urban green space.
Congratulations, Jackson!
Sam Clay Completes his Master's and Wins a Fulbright
to Study Ecuadorian Hillstars
The Grunst lab's first Master's student, Sam Clay, completed his Master's degree on patterns of behavioral plasticity and mercury contamination in red-legged kittiwakes in May, 2026. Major findings from the thesis include that red-legged kittiwakes are capable of some degree of behavioral plasticity in foraging behavior across a season, despite generally displaying specialized foraging patterns. In addition, data indicate sex-specific foraging strategies, and mercury contamination levels above toxicological thresholds.
While completing his thesis, Sam also secured a prestigious Fulbright fellowship to study the ecology of the Ecuadorian hill star, an emblematic Andean hummingbird with a tight coevolutionary relationship with the orange-flowered Chuquiraga bush. See Melissa's drawing for an illustration of a Ecuadorian Hillstar perched on a Chuquiraga.
Sam will be investigating the dependency of the hummingbird upon this plant and whether dietary shifts are possible in the context of shifting elevational distribution, among other questions. Sam will be heading to Chimborazo Mountain in Ecuador in September to begin his Fulbright. After he completes his Fulbright, he will move to Georgia Tech University to work towards his PhD. Congratulations, Sam, and thanks for being a pioneer in the lab!
Pribilofs Field Season, 2025
Lab members Dr. Andrea Grunst, Dr. Melissa Grunst and graduate student Sam Clay just finished our first field season studying the behavioral ecology of seabirds on St. George Island, Pribilofs, Alaska. Work this year focused on the range-restricted red-legged kittiwake, of which 75% of the breeding population nests on St. George. We obtained 27 biologging datasets from kittiwakes, including GPS tracks and triaxial accelerometer data. We are now working to characterize juxtapose time activity budgets (TABs) with spatial movement patterns, and to assess how TABs and movement patterns vary with weather pattern across the season and individual levels of mercury contamination.
Much thanks to our collaborators at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge for a successful field season!
Terre Haute Bird Festival, 2025
To excite the public about avian research, Grunst lab members did a mist-netting demonstration at the Terre Haute Bird Festival on May 31. Species captured included Indigo Buntings, Yellow Throated Warblers, Carolina Chickadees, House Wrens, Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Cardinals, and a Pileated Woodpecker.
