Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) can be a powerful tool in broadening participation in undergraduate research. In this paper, we review the benefits of and barriers to undergraduate research experiences and explore how CUREs can mitigate some of those issues. As a part of the NSF-supported Biological Collections in Ecology and Evolution Network (BCEENET) activities, a series of network meetings produced a set of recommendations to increase the accessibility of CUREs for all students at all institution types. We use BCEENET CUREs that focus on digitized natural history collections data to illustrate how leveraging adaptable open educational resources that use freely available data and analysis tools can increase accessibility of undergraduate research. We also discuss how inclusive networks of educators and research collaborators can support broadening CURE implementation.

Individuals from multiple species often aggregate at resources, group to facilitate defense and foraging, or are brought together by human activity. While it is well-documented that host-seeking disease vectors and parasites show biases in their responses to cues from different hosts, the influence of mixed-species assemblages on disease dynamics has received limited attention. Here, we synthesize relevant research in host-specific vector and parasite bias. To better understand how vector and parasite biases influence infection, we provide a conceptual framework describing cue-oriented vector and parasite host-seeking behaviour as a two-stage process that encompasses attraction of these enemies to the assemblage and their choice of hosts once at the assemblage. We illustrate this framework, developing a case study of mixed-species frog assemblages, where frog-biting midges transmit trypanosomes. Finally, we present a mathematical model that investigates how host species composition and asymmetries in vector attraction modulate transmission dynamics in mixed-species assemblages. We argue that differential attraction of vectors by hosts can have important consequences for disease transmission within mixed-species assemblages, with implications for wildlife conservation and zoonotic disease. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mixed-species groups and aggregations: shaping ecological and behavioural patterns and processes'.

Males often broadcast conspicuous signals from within mixed-species aggregations to attract mates. In addition to attracting females, however, these displays expose signalers to eavesdropping predators and parasites. For individuals in mixed-species aggregations, the balance between attracting mates and avoiding eavesdroppers is influenced both by the attractiveness of their calls and by the calling activity of conspecific and heterospecific neighbors. Through a process termed “collateral damage”, frogs signaling near heterospecific neighbors that are highly attractive to eavesdroppers can experience drastically increased parasitism compared to those signaling next to conspecifics. Here, we investigate whether the intensity of this collateral damage is influenced by the density of, or the call types produced by, heterospecific neighbors. In phonotaxis trials using hourglass treefrogs as the focal species and túngara frogs as the attractive heterospecific neighbor, we found no differences in the number of parasites attracted to hourglass treefrog calls played adjacent to simple versus complex túngara calls. By contrast, a higher density of neighboring túngara frogs decreased the collateral damage suffered by hourglass treefrogs by approximately 40%. Our results demonstrate that the density of nearby heterospecifics can modulate parasitism risk due to collateral damage in mixed-species aggregations. Thus, our conception of the dilution of eavesdropper risks with increasing group size may need to be augmented to include the effects of multiple prey or host types.HIGHLIGHTS● Heterospecific call type does not change collateral damage on hourglass treefrogs● However, parasitism decreases when calling next to high densities of heterospecifics

Weaving the future of the field of comparative psychology is dependent on the career advancement of early-career scientists. Despite concerted efforts to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, scholars from marginalized groups are disproportionately underrepresented in the field-especially at advanced career stages. New approaches to sponsorship, mentoring, and community building are necessary to retain talent from marginalized communities and to create a culture and a system where all individuals can thrive. We describe the unique and supportive role of senior women scientists united through a professional society in initiating peer coaching circles to facilitate the success of a diverse cohort of early-career women scientists. We offer our experiences with the Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior program as a case study that illustrates the cascading impacts of professional societies investing in the success and career development of marginalized scholars. We focus on our peer coaching circle experience and share the products and outcomes after 2 years of meeting. Peer coaching transformed us from a group of loosely organized, anxious individuals into a collective of empowered agents of change with an enhanced sense of belonging. We end by presenting recommendations to institutions seeking to expand the landscape of opportunities to other marginalized scholars. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Urbanization can cause species to adjust their sexual displays, because the effectiveness of mating signals is influenced by environmental conditions. Despite many examples that show that mating signals in urban conditions differ from those in rural conditions, we do not know whether these differences provide a combined reproductive and survival benefit to the urban phenotype. Here we show that male túngara frogs have increased the conspicuousness of their calls, which is under strong sexual and natural selection by signal receivers, as an adaptive response to city life. The urban phenotype consequently attracts more females than the forest phenotype, while avoiding the costs that are imposed by eavesdropping bats and midges, which we show are rare in urban areas. Finally, we show in a translocation experiment that urban frogs can reduce risk of predation and parasitism when moved to the forest, but that forest frogs do not increase their sexual attractiveness when moved to the city. Our findings thus reveal that urbanization can rapidly drive adaptive signal change via changes in both natural and sexual selection pressures.

Whereas the "escape-and-radiate" plant-herbivore scenario predicts that reciprocating cycles of defense-counter defense foster the evolution of traits with increasing efficacy that accumulate during clade diversification, coevolutionary models of herbivore responses to their enemies remain unexplored. Quantitative information is scarce about how defensive traits perform, interact and become functionally integrated. Moreover, there are few studies that have combined performance and phylogenetic information to detect patterns of trait assembly and trends in defense efficacy. Using field demonstrations of effectiveness and phylogenetic reconstructions, we evaluated patterns of trait precedence and suite assembly by comparing the larval defenses of two beetles, Acromis sparsa and Chelymorpha alternans, which both feed on the leaf surfaces of the same plant, have shields containing host-derived deterrent chemicals and form aggregations. Additionally, female A. sparsa guard their larvae. Using an ecologically relevant bioassay, we quantified the extent to which: (1) gregariousness, size, maternal care and shields affected survival; (2) defenses interacted, and; (3) derived traits and suites outperformed ancestral ones. Regression models ranked traits revealing synergistic interactions. Shields interacted with gregariousness to form the strongest suite. Maternal care contributed to overall higher survival in A. sparsa, an advantage lost after female removal. Phylogenetic reconstruction revealed a sequence of trait accumulation and suite formation. The combined performance-phylogenetic approach revealed: (1) multi-trait interactions amplified effectiveness; (2) a sequence of novel trait origins was followed by suite assembly, and; (3) an incremental trend in defense efficacy congruent with escalation. Multi-trait interactions fostered suite assembly that likely conferred the advantage of enhanced survival in the precarious leaf surface adaptive zone.

We studied the use of song types and their acoustic features in different social contexts in the banded wren (Thryothorus pleurostictus), a resident tropical songbird in which males possess about 20 distinctive song types varying in duration, bandwidth, note composition, and trill structure. We recorded six focal males intensively for four days each while we observed context information such as during versus after dawn chorus, presence of the female, counter-versus solo-singing, location at the edge versus centre of the territory, and proximity to the nest. All males used at least some song types differentially during each of these pairs of alternative contexts. Males also preferentially used the song types they shared with a given neighbour when interacting with that bird. Songs delivered during dawn chorus were significantly longer, wider in bandwidth, often compound (double songs), and more likely to contain a rattle or buzz and an up-sweeping trill, compared to songs delivered after dawn chorus. Similar features were also more commonly observed when birds were engaged in intense male-male interactions and boundary disputes after dawn chorus, especially when countersinging at the edge of the territory. The presence of the female caused the male to deliver song types with narrower whole-song and trill bandwidth and fewer rattles and buzzes, and song-type diversity and fraction of compound songs were higher when the female was present. Thus, in addition to using type matching and variations in song-type switching and diversity to signal different levels of aggressive intention, male banded wrens also select song types based on their acoustic structure in different social contexts.