| Dustin Rubenstein (Cornell Ph.D. candidate) is studying the cooperative breeding behavior of the superb starling (Lamprotornis superbus) in Kenya. Superb starlings are "plural" cooperative breeders with an extremely complex social system in which reproductive roles vary greatly among individuals. Dustin is exploring how social, environmental, and demographic factors influence reproductive decisions through changes in physiology. This requires information about the family relationships between breeders, helpers, and offspring, which Dustin is assaying using microsatellite DNA markers here in the Evolutionary Biology Program laboratory.
For more detailed information please visit Dustin's web site.
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Dustin looking unusually clean at his field site in Kenya. |
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