It's the start of field research season in many regions--and some scientists haven't gotten afield since the pandemic started--so we're checking in with a couple researchers to hear what they’re planning to work on, out there in the bush.

Our first guest is Meredith Palmer, a post-doctoral researcher at Princeton University whose field work this season is testing new conservation technologies like the BoomBox, an open‐source device that attaches to commercially available camera traps and turns them into an automated behavioral response systems.

Also on the show is Ummat Somjee, a researcher based out of the Smithsonian Tropical Institute in Panama. He uses insects as models to understand the evolution of extreme structures in animals, like the tusks of elephants or the horns of antelopes.

Here are their studies mentioned in this episode:

• Palmer, M. S., Wang, C., Plucinski, J., & Pringle, R. M. (2022). BoomBox: An Automated Behavioural Response (ABR) camera trap module for wildlife playback experiments. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 13(3), 611-618. doi:10.1111/2041-210X.13789

• Somjee, U., Powell, E. C., Hickey, A. J., Harrison, J. F., & Painting, C. J. (2021). Exaggerated sexually selected weapons maintained with disproportionately low metabolic costs in a single species with extreme size variation. Functional Ecology, 35(10), 2282-2293. doi:10.1111/1365-2435.13888

If you enjoy the Mongabay Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

Please share your thoughts and ideas! [email protected].

Get full access to Planet: Critical at www.planetcritical.com/subscribe