Maternal Care?  Let someone else do it! — Dr Kathleen Lynch

Birds display a diverse array of parental care strategies. Dr. Kathleen Lynch examines one of the rare forms of care; giving up on care altogether. For 1% of avian species, females abandon maternal care altogether and lay their eggs in the nests of another species. Dr. Lynch examines the neurobiological, hormonal, and molecular basis for this loss of maternal care.

Dr. Lynch received her doctorate from UT Austin after an MS at Idaho State, and a BA from University of Montana. Currently she is an Associate Professor of Biology at Hofstra University.

For the 2020 SICB symposium on Reproduction: the female perspective from an integrative and comparative framework, Dr. Lynch’s talk entitled “Social regulation of female reproductive hormones and the implications for female mate choice” is based on her studies of mate choice in frogs, birds, and fish.

KS Lynch, G Azieva, A Pellicano. 2018. Socially regulated estrogen in an eavesdropping brood parasite. General and Comparative Endocrinology, 269:166-170.

Photo credits: Dr Kathleen Lynch