Principal Investigator
Dr. Pirmin Nietlisbach
E-mail: pnietli@ilstu.edu
Phone: (309) 438-3669
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 339
Pirmin graduated from the University of Zurich, Switzerland in 2010. He studied sex-linked genetic variation in orang-utan (Pongo spp.) populations for his MSc thesis research in the lab of Michael Krützen. In 2015, Pirmin finished his PhD on inbreeding and heterozygosity in song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) in the labs of Erik Postma and Lukas Keller at the University of Zurich, followed by a postdoc period. From 2017-2020, he was a postdoc in the lab of Michael Whitlock at the University of British Columbia. Pirmin joined the School of Biological Sciences at Illinois State University in Normal in September 2020.
Lab Manager
Jessica A. Krippel
E-mail: jakrip1@ilstu.edu
Phone: (309) 438-8551
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Jessica obtained her Bachelor of Science from the University of Iowa in 2006, after which she worked as the behavioral husbandry coordinator at an AZA-accredited zoo in Asheville, NC. Her interest in studying animal behavior then led her to obtain a Master of Science in Biology with a focus in Animal Behavior from Western Carolina University in 2014. From there, Jessica moved to Vancouver, Canada, where she worked as a research associate at the University of British Columbia overseeing a long-term field study site, and started her own canine behavior consulting business Evolution Dog Training. Jessica joined the lab in October 2020.
Jessica is interested in understanding animal behavior from both an applied and evolutionary perspective. Her research investigates how consistent individual differences in behavior over time and contexts, also known as animal personality or behavioral syndromes, evolve and are maintained in populations of wild animals. Outside of academia, Jessica works in applied animal behavior, using applied behavior analysis to bring about behavior change in animals.
Here at Illinois State University, Jessica is in charge of keeping our lab up-to-date, supervising students in the lab and field, and helping the students to plan and execute behavior-related research projects. Outside of school, Jessica works on her behavior consulting business, hikes with husband and dogs, and rides her horse, Gabe.
MSc Students
Rachel Berg
E-mail: raberg1@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Rachel received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior from the University of Minnesota in 2017. After graduation, she worked at a wildlife research and education facility in central Minnesota, where she participated in multiple research projects on gray wolves. Rachel is now a master’s student at Illinois State University. She joined the lab in May 2021.
Rachel is researching the evolutionary history of North American deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) populations located on the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada. Investigating their genomes will provide information about phylogenetic relatedness among the island populations, as well as population divergence time estimates. Rachel is also interested in the biogeographic and ecological mechanisms driving the evolution of insular gigantism in these populations.
Lauren Leischner
E-mail: lmleisc@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Lauren Leischner is a graduate student at Illinois State University in the Behavior, Ecology, Evolution & Systematics (BEES) section. She graduated from the University of Illinois Springfield with a Bachelor’s degree in biology in the spring of 2021. She joined the lab in the fall of 2021.
Lauren conducts research with the house wren population in the Mackinaw study area, collaborating with Charles Thompson and Scott Sakaluk. She studies the factors that contribute to whether an individual produces a second brood: timing and individual quality. Her work includes cross-fostering experiments in the field as well as analysis of the long term dataset.
Avery Dart
E-mail: andart@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Avery Dart graduated from the University of Asheville, North Carolina, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies in December 2019. After graduating, he spent most of 2020 bird watching and he became fascinated by bird behavior.
Avery is a M.S. student researching house wrens. Avery seeks to understand if house wren males change their rate of provisioning food to their brood based on whether their brood contains extra-pair offspring (i.e., does a male change his provisioning behavior if he’s cuckolded?). Avery is a passionate bird-watcher and wants to do conservation work after he graduates.
Maddie Koeplin
E-mail: mskoepl@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Maddie graduated from Eckerd College in the spring of 2018 with a Bachelor’s degree in biology and environmental studies. She spent half of 2019 working as an intern at the Bimini Biological Field Station on the Bahamas working on shark ecology studies. Maddie then spent a year working as a research assistant at the Kalahari Meerkat Project in South Africa, primarily collecting behavioral data.
Maddie joined the lab as a Master’s student in the fall of 2023, and conducts research on the deermouse populations on British Columbia’s Gulf Islands.
Undergraduate Students
Ashley Rodriguez
E-mail: arodr62@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Ashley Rodriguez is an undergraduate student at Illinois State University majoring in Conservation Biology and Zoology. Ashley joined the lab in August of 2023. Ashley’s hobbies outside of the lab include baking and confectionery.
Ashley was a member of the ISU Wren Crew in the summer of 2023 where she assisted with collecting data on the Mackinaw Study Area house wren population. Ashley is contributing to research in our lab by extracting DNA from house wren blood samples and multiplex polymerase chain reactions. She will also use genetic variation to assign paternities and create pedigrees.
Wren Crews
Every summer, a team of researchers conducts field work studying house wrens at the Mackinaw study area 15 miles northeast of the campus of Illinois State University. This project was started in 1980 by Charles Thompson and Scott Sakaluk joined in 2004. Pirmin Nietlisbach and his lab started collaborating with Charles, Scott, and their labs in 2022. The wren crew is responsible for checking 820 nestboxes in the forest twice a week, catching, measuring and banding all adults and nestlings, reading color band combinations to identify individually marked male house wrens, collection of small blood samples for DNA analysis from one part of the study area, and for various additional tasks associated with ongoing research projects. More information about this long-term project can be found on Charles Thompson’s website.
Wren Crew 2023
From left to right: Lauren Leischner, Scott Sakaluk, Jess Grundke, Becca Brown, Rachael DiSciullo, Pirmin Nietlisbach, Christine Poppe, Charles Thompson, Ashley Rodriguez, Avery Dart, Kiana Itschner-Washington (missing Marion Sakaluk, Elizabeth Sponagle, Micah Fedorchak).
Wren Crew 2022
From left to right: Micah Fedorchak, Pirmin Nietlisbach, Jessica Krippel, Charles Thompson, Sabine Hoffmann, Rachael DiSciullo, Scott Sakaluk, Christine Poppe, Marion Sakaluk, Lauren Leischner, Katie Tuider, Hailey Burnett.
Alumni
Becca Brown
E-mail: rmbrow2@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Rebecca Brown is an undergraduate student at Illinois State University majoring in animal science with a focus in zoology. Outside of school she participates in ISU’s club volleyball team and likes to go hiking.
Rebecca participated in the wren crew this past summer of 2023 to collect data on house wrens in the Mackinaw study area. She worked in the lab in fall 2023 to apply genetic lab work techniques of DNA extraction from blood samples and multiplex polymerase chain reactions, as well as to infer paternities using genetic variation.
Hailey Burnett
E-mail: hjburn1@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338
Hailey is an undergraduate majoring in conservation biology and environmental systems science and sustainability. She is the president of the Biological Sciences Student Assocation. Outside of school, Hailey enjoy running, reading, and yoga!
Hailey participated in field work in the summer of 2022 to collect data on the house wren population of the Mackinaw Study Area. In the lab from September 2022 through April 2023, Hailey tested microsatellite markers to conduct parentage assignments and pedigree reconstruction of the house wren population. These pedigrees will be useful in studying the evolution of extra pair paternity and other traits in house wrens.
Vanessa Jensen
E-mail: vjense2@ilstu.edu
Office: Science Laboratory Building – SLB 338 and remote
Vanessa Jensen is an undergraduate student at Illinois State University majoring in animal science and minoring in environmental sciences. She is also the Vice President of Black Girl Code. Vanessa joined the lab from January 2021 to April 2023.
Vanessa was contributing to the research in our lab by researching how to estimate the age of deer mice based on their weight. Approximate age information will be helpful for identifying parent-offspring relationships and thus for measuring reproductive success. The resulting pedigree will also be used to estimate inbreeding.
Mary Schiltz
E-mail: maschi5@ilstu.edu
Office: remote
Mary Schiltz is an undergraduate at Illinois State University majoring in conservation biology. She is an ecological restoration volunteer in St. Charles, Illinois, and a member of ISU’s wildlife conservation club. Mary worked in the lab from October 2020 to April 2021.
Mary contributed to research in our lab by organizing deer mouse trapping data collected in the field. Analyzing these data will provide information about the preferred habitats and times of activity of the deer mice being studied. This information will be used to improve trapping success by pinpointing the best locations and timing for trapping mice.