ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Trina Chou is an author on ‘ I can't hear you: songbird auditory processing in noise’, published in JEB. Trina conducted the research described in this article while an undergraduate research assistant in Megan Gall's lab at Vassar College, USA. She is now a second year PhD candidate in the lab of Jessie Tanner at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, investigating animal acoustic communication and the evolutionary pressures shaping signal evolution.
Trina Chou
How did you become interested in biology?
I've always been fascinated with animals, although being raised with a biologist for a mom certainly didn't hurt. I grew up surrounded by cats, and from a young age my parents say I was carefully watching them and making observations about them (for example, I figured out that my cats didn't like when the water bowl was directly on the ground, so I would find stools or other small boxes to make it easier for them to drink). This love for animals and science continued throughout school, where I had plenty of chances to interact with the outside world and appreciate the wonders of science. I worked at my local zoo during the summer of my junior year, and I appreciated being so close and up front with the unique and rare animals! Overall, I am extremely grateful to be doing something I love and working in a field that deals with my interests.
Describe your scientific journey and your current research focus
As a freshman in undergrad, I was lucky enough to be in a class taught by Dr Gall. I knew at the time that I was interested in animals, but was amazed to find that there were careers for studying animal behavior. Excited by this potential path, I joined the lab as a sophomore (amidst the COVID pandemic!). Through my experience in a completely undergraduate-run lab, I gained extremely valuable hands-on experience working with birds and listening to them call. This led me to be generally interested in the field of acoustic communication and the evolution of signals, which is what has led me now to my current work with frogs at the University of Tennessee. For my PhD, I am focusing on within-individual variation in signaling and studying how inconsistencies in repeated signalling may affect receiver behavior.
How would you explain the main findings of your paper to a member of the public?
In this paper, I found that songbirds have different auditory processing abilities in noise – nuthatches in particular are worse at hearing in noise than titmice and chickadees! We found this by directly measuring their auditory systems, and these species patterns mirrored those observed in behavioral changes in noise along with predictions of another measurement of the auditory system, the auditory filter efficiency. Ultimately, our work demonstrates the usefulness of critical ratios, the non-invasive, simple technique we used to measure the auditory processing abilities of these animals, and that they may actually help us better predict how different species behaviorally react in response to increasing levels of anthropogenic noise!
A tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) after experimentation recovering in a cage. All birds were released back to where they were found within 24 h of capture.
A tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) after experimentation recovering in a cage. All birds were released back to where they were found within 24 h of capture.
What do you enjoy most about research, and why?
I love being able to execute a research plan out in the field after many months of planning – it is extremely rewarding to be able to be able to carry out a plan after sitting on it for months and months. It is extremely gratifying to be able to carry out your experiments and see the preliminary data start to roll in, as it is kind of the first indicator of progress with your work! Of course, you have no idea what the data are going to end up being, but I find the first couple of data collection sessions very exciting.
What is the most important lesson that you have learned from your career so far?
The most important lesson I've learned throughout my career has been that everything happens for a reason, and that you can always make the most out of any situation you find yourself in. Throughout both my personal life and academic career, I have had multiple plans or aspirations fail and fall through – despite these failures though, I found the next best opportunity and took full advantage of what I was offered. All of these ‘second chances’ have ended up leading me now to where I am – from deciding to go to Vassar, to pursuing animal research as a career, I am extremely grateful that my experiences have turned out the way they have.
What is one thing about you that others might find surprising?
Throughout my undergraduate career, I also played sports at my Division III school! During the spring of my senior year, I was simultaneously collecting the data seen in this manuscript, running for my varsity track and field team, and being a captain for my varsity women's lacrosse team (we won our first league playoff game in the history of our program that year – woohoo!). It was definitely an extremely busy semester for me; however, I found that I really enjoyed all aspects of my work. Overall, being both a student and an athlete really helped (1) my time management skills and (2) my communication skills. I credit a lot of my success in graduate school to the experiences I've gained as both an athlete and a researcher.
Trina Chou's contact details: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
E-mail: [email protected]
