Research at 'The end of the world'

It has been difficult to keep track of Taylor Dunbar ’12 during her career as a student at Franklin & Marshall College. In the summer of 2010, she traveled to South Africa to participate in a 10-week course on global public health. She returned to Africa last spring, researching the green turtle population on Mnemba Island, Tanzania, during a semester abroad.

Dunbar, an animal behavior and art double major, set off on another international adventure over winter break. This time the destination was Ushuaia, Argentina, where she studied the Chilean swallow (Tachycineta meyeni) for her project for the Marshall Scholarship, an award given to students who have demonstrated unusual motivation, spirit of achievement and independence of thought. Joining her on a portion of the trip was Assistant Professor of Biology Dan Ardia, who is part of an international community of scientists exploring swallows from northern Canada to Argentina in a project titled Golondrinas de las Americas.

In conducting research on the southern tip of South America—an area sometimes called “The End of the World”—Dunbar studied how swallows live and reproduce in an environment that is often stormy, usually cold, and almost always unpredictable. She collected data in a valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains, working closely with Ardia and recent F&M graduate Maya Wilson ’11, who is an intern with the Golondrinas project.

“We studied how the birds cope and survive in a harsh environment,” Dunbar says. “We collected egg temperature data to measure parental investment in the nest. If the nest is likely not to survive, the parents may spend more or less time there. It’s a tradeoff between parents maintaining their own survival and that of their young.”

The research in Argentina follows Dunbar’s summer 2011 project as a Cargill Environmental Scholar, during which she worked with Ardia in Lancaster to explore the breeding biology of local tree swallows. Dunbar is comparing data from Lancaster and Argentina to better understand the factors that influence parental investment in the two populations of swallows.

“It was rewarding for me to see Taylor use all the skills and experience she gained at F&M in Argentina,” Ardia says. “She had to troubleshoot to make things work in difficult field conditions, and I think she rose to the challenge and did a great job. She’ll make a great scientist. It was nice to see how confident she felt conducting research in another country.”

In addition to her international travel, Dunbar has wide-ranging interests at F&M. She is the managing editor of The College Reporter, a tutor at the Writing Center and is a member of the Life After College Success Program. She has also turned her longtime passion for art into her second academic major.

“I’d be taking art classes for fun anyway,” Dunbar says. “In high school, I discovered that I loved biology. Sometimes it’s difficult to go from [biology to art] because they require different parts of the brain. It’s hard to go back to your creative side.”

And for Dunbar, it is also difficult to sit still. She hopes to attend graduate school, but only after other international adventures.

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