Professors, students publish new paper in notable scientific journal

On Aug. 7, Biology Prof. Alex Trillo published a new paper in the scientific journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution alongside student and faculty collaborators both here at Gettysburg College and abroad.

Entitled "The Influence of Signaling Conspecific and Heterospecific Neighbors on Eavesdropper Pressure," this article discusses how the predation and parasitism faced by a calling animal can be affected by the calling activity of its neighbors. After reviewing the effects of having neighbors of either same or different species, Prof. Trillo and her collaborators developed a predictive risk model based on the number and appeal of calling neighbors. This model helps identify important implications that will allow for better understanding of community dynamics and the evolution of signals.

Gettysburg contributors include Biology Prof. Michael Caldwell, biology major graduate Tiffany Lam '19, and current biochemistry-molecular biology major Oliver Pickering '22.

For this article, Dr. Trillo also collaborated with Christopher Benson, a physics graduate student at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, and David Logue, a psychology professor at Lethbridge who also is a member of the biology department at the University of Puerto Rico.