Biography

Jodie completed her PhD at the University of Sheffield in 2014, studying vocal communication in the chestnut-crowned babbler, a cooperatively breeding bird endemic to south-eastern Australia. Since then she has been the Ornithological Warden for the Calf of Man Bird Observatory, and a Senior Research Assistant with the RSPB, tracking seabird movements on Fair Isle. She previously worked as a Research Assistant on Skomer Island as part of a long-term population study on guillemots. She is an active bird ringer, and has a British Trust for Ornithology A-permit and training endorsement.

Research Interests

Jodie’s primary research interest is in bioacoustics. During her PhD she worked on the structure and function of call repertoires in birds, and how vocal communication mediates social behaviour within groups. She is particularly interested in whether social complexity drives vocal complexity, and in relationships between the different calls comprising a species’ repertoire. Whilst conducting playback experiments for her PhD she became interested in the broader links between communication and cognition. Here at UCC, she will be working with Prof. John Quinn investigating the evolutionary ecology of cognition in wild great tits.

Publications

1. Crane, J M S, Savage, J L, & Russell, AF (2016). Diversity and function of vocalisations in the cooperatively breeding chestnut-crowned babbler. Emu 116(3) 241-253.
2. Crane, J M S†, Engesser, S†, Savage, J L, Russell, A F, Townsend S W (2015). Experimental evidence for phonemic contrast in a nonhuman vocal system. PLOS Biology 13(6) e1002171. († Joint first authorship.)
3. Crane, J M S, Pick, J L, Tribe, A J, Vincze, E, Hatchwell, B J, Russell, A F (2015). Chestnut-crowned babblers show affinity for calls of removed group members: a dual playback without expectancy violation. Animal Behaviour, 104, 51-57.
4. Crane, J M S (2014) Vocal communication in the cooperatively breeding chestnut-crowned babbler. PhD Thesis, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield.

Professional Activity

Outreach Activities

Recent media coverage of publication:

• “Babblers speak to the origin of language” - The Guardian