Courtney publishes paper in Journal of Experimental Biology

Courtney publishes the first product of her dissertation in Journal of Experimental Biology! Should a gerbil jump or run zig-zags when it's confronted by a predator? The upshot: Courtney ran a series of controlled laboratory tests to discover that each individual's decision in that pivotal moment may be enabled by -- or constrained by -- the anatomy of its hind limbs. The best jumpers are not necessarily the best maneuverers, and vice versa. 

Treat yourselves to a look at some videos of gerbils jumping and running through the experimental apparatus that Courtney published in the supplementary materials.

This is a particularly gratifying culmination of significant work in no small part because it originated as a 'pandemic project' when our plans for field research got stymied. The work featured an all-star crew of departmental colleagues, postdocs, and undergraduate researchers to boot. 

The accepted article is online ahead of print at Journal of Experimental Biology and should be published to open-access (freely available) repositories shortly: Distinct morphological drivers of jumping and maneuvering performance in gerbils