Long overdue but quite a bit of news!
Hi everybody!
Thanks for following our project along so far, and I know many of you have actively contributed to the work Jeff, Elliott and I are doing.
Biggest news first: I've been accepted and have started my Ph.D. at Carleton University in Ottawa! I'm continuing and building on the work I've been doing with Jeff and Elliott the last 5 years, adding in new angles, such as sound production mechanisms. Not only am I studying what they do and how they're related, I'll be delving in to how it's actually accomplished!
There's going to be some really exciting things coming down the pipeline in the next year; the first results of the culmination of our years of work and your contributions!
22 people from iNaturalist have contributed material to our work. I want to acknowledge everyone and how much they have helped!
George D. sent us over 30 Okanagana fumipennis and put us on to an awesome locality
@drjakuna Has helped us for 3 years now collect cicadas while she and her students do their own impressive work! They have sent us O. utahensis (photos used in a publications), O. gibbera, and O. vanduzeei(?), as well as some Platypedia and Hadoa
@jenny109 Has also closely been working with us, and we have sequenced a Platypedia putnami from them as well as getting O. hesperia and a great assortment of non-Okanagana
@linak found our first O. arboraria and provided some specimens and recordings
@mnishiguchi Was one of the people who started us off working with iNaturalist. Since 2019 he has been collecting for us and sent our only specimens of Okanagana vocalis and Okanagana salicicola, both of which we are sequencing/have sequenced. But what he sent me first is still unknown, and by that I mean is clearly a new species.
@rachtile sent us an Okanagana lurida to sequence, and it's been a boon for us, and so far the only specimen we have.
@richardwasson sent me a type Okanagana ornata, a beautiful specimen and it remains one of only a few we have, and the only type locality specimen
@rlsanders Has been helping us for years now, way before we started to work with iNaturalis. We have huge series of O. hesperia, O. synodica, our only two O. viridis, and two oddballs from northern New Mexico. He's also sent a huge number of recordings our way
@ameeds Sent me an Okanagana magnifica for a paper I was writing and has been working with us since to explore his area in the hunt of Okanagana georgi
@birdernaturalist Has also spent the last couple of years collecting for us. Our only samples of O. sequoiae come from him, successfully sequenced now. He's also recorded virtually everything he has sent, which, as I'm not only studying bioacoustics, but also how it related to physiology and morphology is an incredible boon to be able to directly associate the song with the specimen. Also, if you are a birder who likes to travel, shoot a message his way!
@kmosbruger helped us find a wide assortment of oddball species from northern Utah. Some of which we are a bit baffled by!
@brandonwoo provided me with with some Okanagana rimosa to aide my reference collection. This is the type species of Okanagana, meaning it was the very first described/assigned to that genus.
@emshaph sent us our one and only Okanagana catalina (successfully sequenced). That story is just hilarious.
@jamiehunter Managed to track down our single Okanagana noveboracensis, which has been sent on its way to Jeff to get sequenced, and a huge number of songs were recorded by @upupa-epops.
@fmgee sent us O. canadensis and O. occidentalis. The former is on the far side of its range, and the latter is about as near the type locality as we will ever get.
@steppani had two specimens of O. tanneri collected last year during a huge emergence that was off our radar. And sent both to us to help our work. It was more than successful and now we have DNA sequenced for Okanagana tanneri
@rickwalks Sent an amazing series of Okanagana occidentalis and O. nigrodorsata along with some great recordings to help me really firm up what a true occidentalis looks like.
@jessica239 Sent me a great specimen of Okanagana balli, an oddball from the northeast great plains and I hope I can help her in turn learn more about it.
@madamcoyote sent a strange Okanagan tristis our way that we are still working on
@geeahmatree sent us an Okanagana arctostaphylae and it allowed us to be able to sequence a pair of this enigmatic species, thought lost for over 100 years, but rather thriving in places nobody would ever go look.
I would like to thank each and every one of you for your help the last couple of years, and I hope I can continue to work with you as time goes on. It's funny how life connects people. Making friends you never would have had, meeting those you never would have known, and for all of you, helping a student begin a long journey that I might never have been able to even contemplate.
Please expect a different profile picture with me in graduation robes in about 4 years.
All the best,
Will
