The WFU Department of Biology is proud to celebrate the career and extraordinary service to Wake Forest of Professor William Conner on the occasion of his retirement. Congratulations, Bill! Bill’s service as the Faculty Director of the WFU Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Program, from 2010 to 2016, inspired him to help students build bridges between…
FACULTY APPOINTMENTS Chair of Biology Dr. Erik C. Johnson, Professor of Biology, has been newly appointed as Chair of Biology, effective July 1, 2022. We thank Dr. Johnson for his upcoming leadership and service in the year ahead! We would also like to thank, and show our appreciation to, Dr. Susan E. Fahrbach for her…
Dr. William Conner and his co-researcher Dr. Nicholas Dowdy have found that certain members of the Tiger moth family do not duck and dive from predatory bats with the same vigor as their counterparts. Strikingly, we observed that moths with weak or no chemical defences often dive away to escape bat attacks. However, moths with…
The BBC recently featured Ph.D. candidate Nick Dowdy‘s work on moths in Central America. He has some very interesting scientific findings on the unique defensive behavior of a particular Ecuadorian moth. When threatened, it “uses an explosion of a sticky, wool-like material to defend itself.” This has never been seen before in a moth species. You can…
Science magazine and the BBC independently featured the work of Aaron Corcoran and Bill Conner. The Science article is titled: “Holy blocked bat signal! Bats jam each other’s calls”. This article focuses on the research of Corcoran and Conner done in the southwestern United States on bat colonies and studies of bat calls. The BBC also pubished an…
Nickolay Hristov, Professor with the UNC Center for Design Innovation and Wake Forest Biology Research Professor, does amazing research on bats. His work was featured on National Public Radio (NPR) weekly program Science Friday. Nick received his PhD. from Wake Forest in 2008 and works closely with Professor William Conner’s laboratory. In this Science Friday…
Aaron Corcoran’s research on sonar jamming moths is featured in the new National Geographic Special “Untamed Americas”. The footage is featured in the episode on Deserts. It is airing Saturday, June 16, 9pm EST. Link to the show page: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/untamed-americas/ Mexican Free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) migrate up to 1,000 miles (1609 kilometers) from their winter home…
Congratulations to William E. Conner, professor of Biology, whose proposal entitled “Acoustic Aposematism, Mimicry, and Sonar Jamming in the Bat-Moth Arms Race” has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Professor of Biology William E. Conner has been named the first David and Lelia Farr Professor of Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. The chair was established by David (’77) and Lelia (’77) Farr of St. Louis, Mo., to recognize Conner and his work with the Wake Forest Program in Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. The funding provides…
Windows on Wake Forest published an article about PhD. candidate Aaron Corcoran and Professor William Conner entitled, “Nature’s Trick or Treat” In the ongoing evolutionary battle between bats and moths, a species of tiger moth plays a trick with sound to avoid becoming a bat’s tasty treat, according to new research by professor William Conner…
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