My students and I study behavioral and evolutionary ecology, using a combination of social network models, molecular genetic techniques, matrix-based demographic modeling (mostly using Mathematica™), and detailed behavioral studies of individually-marked individuals.  Current projects include conservation genetics of Oreohelix land snails, reticulate evolution in threatened native bluehead and flannelmouth suckers (fish in the genus Catostomus), the Wyoming pocket gopher (Thomomys clusius), black-footed ferret demography, and various aspects of the biology of Black Rosy-Finches, Leucosticte atrata, and Brown-capped Rosy-Finches, L. australis.

I have become very interested in social network models -- for example, using a male's past social interactions to predict his eventual fate (five years later) in Long-tailed Manakins. My student Brandon Munk and I have just finished a comparative study of hippocampal development (spatial memory processing) in four species of manakins -- Chiroxiphia linearis, Manacus candei, Pipra mentalis and Lepidothrix coronata.  Viva Emlen and Oring 1977!  Ecology really does drive weird variations in mating systems.

Past molecular projects include Boreal Owls, black bears, Burrowing Owls, Florida Scrub-Jays, and Long-tailed Manakins. Current manakin projects include network models of sociality and assessment of hippocampal volume (as a step in the development of acute mate choice and constraints favoring cooperation).  My demographic interests focus on life history evolution, particularly in the context of social behavior. Demographic projects include stage-classified matrix population models for socially structured populations (e.g., cooperative breeders, where social status not age determines demographic performance), demonstration of actuarial senescence in bird populations, and the relationship between life history variation and mating systems (e.g., age of first reproduction and longevity in lek-mating birds), and long term demographic data from birds in East Africa.  I also conducted experimental presentations of taxidermic mounts in the zone of introgression between White-collared Manakins, Manacus candei, and Golden-collared manakins, M. vitellinus (the elegant animal photographed below left by Marie Read) near the Panamanian-Costa Rican border.  The rosy-finch and manakin studies integrate my diverse interests in mating systems, genetic structure, hybrid zones, evolutionary demography and conservation.

I love living in the least populated state in the nation (~ 0.5 million), at 7,200', in the high short-grass prairie, and at one of the most compelling biogeographic crossroads I have ever encountered. Laramie finally has a Thai restaurant, and Manu Chao has played in Denver twice recently! My only regrets are that Walter Anderson didn't paint a Long-tailed Manakin (though he did spend some time in Costa Rica...), that Junior Kimbrough died before I could see him live, and (thankfully, not that much longer to go!) the letter fourth from the end of the alphabet.

Male Red-capped Manakin, Pipra mentalis near Aguila de Osa Lodge, Costa Rica (www.aguiladeosa.com)

Link to Marni Koopman's home page (Boreal Owl Ph.D. project; paper on genetic structure of Boreal Owls in N. America, Auk 124: 690)

More photos of rosy-finch fieldwork

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