Name: Kendra Sewall
Major Professor: Thomas Coombs-Hahn
Department: Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior (College of Biological Sciences)
Lab Phone: (530) 754-9848
Email: kbsewall@ucdavis.edu
Web Site:
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BA -
Middlebury College, Vermont -
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2000
MS -
University of California, Davis -
Animal Behavior -
2003
PhD -
University of California, Davis -
Animal Behavior -
2008
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Research Interests
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Social behavior is often mediated by vocal communication signals. Communication requires that animals both recognize companions’ signals and respond to them appropriately. Plastic signal recognition or response throughout life can permit animals to form new social associations and adjust to changing social conditions. Plastic communication behavior could also facilitate individuals’ integration into new social groups and populations. In contrast, limited plasticity in communication behavior could impede social intermixing and promote genetic divergence. My research focuses on how the mechanisms underlying communication affect social dynamics and population structure in wild songbirds. I aim to understand how social experience influences communication behavior by shaping signal recognition and response, how communication impacts social and population dynamics, and how signal “meaning” and relevance are defined through neural and physiological mechanisms.
I recently completed my graduate research on call discrimination and production learning in red crossbills (Loxia curvirostra), in Dr. Thomas Hahn's lab at UC Davis. Currently, I am conducting postdoctoral research on the neural mechanisms underlying social modulation of courtship singing in male Lincoln’s sparrows (Melospiza lincolnii) as a SPIRE postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Keith Sockman's lab, at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
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Publications
Sewall, K. B., T. R. Kelsey, and T. P. Hahn. 2004. Discrete variants of evening grosbeak flight calls. Condor. 106: 161-165.
Sockman, K. W., K. B. Sewall, G. F. Ball, and T. P. Hahn. 2005. Economy of mate attraction in the Cassin's finch. Biology Letters.1:1
Sewall, K. B. 2005. Discrimination of group specific signals in red crossbills. Animal Behavior Society. (Poster - Founders Award Recipient)
Hahn, T. P., J. M. Corneluis, K. B. Sewall, T. R. Kelsey and M. Hau. 2008. Environmental regulation of annual schedules in opportunistically-breeding songbirds: Adaptive specializations or variation on a theme of white-crowned sparrow? General and Comparative Endocrinology.
Sewall, K. B. and T. P. Hahn. Accepted. Social experience modifies behavioral responsiveness to a preferred vocal signal in red crossbills (Loxia curvirostra). Animal Behaviour.
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