Suzanne Amador Kane

Last updated
Suzanne Amador Kane
Born
Suzanne Marie Amador
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BS, 1982
Harvard University, MS, 1984
Harvard University, PhD, 1989
Spouse Charles L. Kane
Scientific career
Fields Biophysics
Institutions Haverford College
Thesis Optical and X-Ray Studies of Critical Phenomena in Thin Liquid Crystal Films  (1989)
Doctoral advisor Peter Pershan
Website Research website

Suzanne Amador Kane is a physicist and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Haverford College. She is well known for her work utilizing video to understand the behavior of various species of birds.

Contents

Education and early career

Kane received her Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1982 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She then attended Harvard University for her Master of Science degree and her Phd. There she worked in the laboratory of applied physicist Peter Pershan. Her thesis, entitled Optical and X-Ray Studies of Critical Phenomena in Thin Liquid Crystal Films and published in 1989, focused on utilizing x-ray and light scattering techniques to study biological membranes and low-dimensional soft matter systems. [1] Following her PhD, she became a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Pennsylvania, working in the laboratory of J. Kent Blasie between 1988 and 1990. There, she continued her work using scattering techniques to understand the structures of multilayer films and biological membranes. [2]

Research

In 1991, Kane became an Assistant Professor at Haverford College, where she was eventually promoted to Professor in 2016. Kane's research centers on the intersection between biophysics, soft condensed matter physics, and statistical physics to understand a range of topics, from the behavior of birds to the bacterial diversity of ecosystems, using experimental techniques that include bioacoustics, computer modeling, and 3D video analysis.

Kane's group has worked to understand a range of bird behaviors. In 2016, her group published a study on how raptors (like hawks, vultures, and falcons) hunt, turning their heads unpredictably as they visually search for their prey. [3] Raptors hunt by alternating periods of rapid head or eye movement—a movement that is known as saccades—with periods during which their eyes are fixed on a specific point. To determine if there was a discernible pattern to this movement, they fitted a Northern goshawk with a tiny head-mounted camera to track its head movements while hunting. [4] They used the video to determine the mathematical distribution of time spent during each saccade and time spent with their heads still and found that the time between each saccade varied depending on external environmental cues, which changed as the hawks honed in on their target. Notably, this behavior is similar to that of primates while they hunt, suggesting that the basic neural processes underlying hunting are the same between primate and raptor hunters. [5] Kane and her team have also studied the predator-prey interactions as Goshawks hunt and their prey evade. [6] [7] Once again, by mounting a camera on a goshawk's head, she observed the different pursuit strategies employed by a hawk as it pursues its prey. Goshawks employ one of two strategies when pursuing their prey, either intercepting the path of their prey at an oblique angle, or chasing their prey by flying directly after it. They also discovered a third pursuit strategy that they are working to classify. When hunting, a goshawk will use a combination of these flight trajectories. [8] In an earlier study, analyzing video of falcons hunting, Kane observed a similar combination flight pattern, with falcons switching between the intercept and chase strategy. [9] [10] Her team also observed that falcons kept their prey at a fixed position to one side, rather than attacking them straight on, exploiting an effect known as motion camouflage to minimize the chance that their prey will detect them. [11] In this particular study, Kane and her group attached cameras to backpacks strapped to the birds or on helmets strapped to their heads to record their movement.

The eyespots, picture above, of the peacock feather contribute to the reproductive success of male peacocks. Peacock feathers closeup.jpg
The eyespots, picture above, of the peacock feather contribute to the reproductive success of male peacocks.

Kane has also studied the biomechanics of peacock courtship rituals. [12] Specifically, her group focused on how feather biomechanics influence the performance of male peacocks as they court females by fanning out and vibrating their tail feathers, a display behavior known as "train-rattling." Kane initially discovered high-speed recordings of the behavior, captured by her collaborator Roslyn Dakin, who was studying the color of peacock feathers. [13] The two began working together to capture more videos of peacock courtship rituals to understand how the tail feathers vibrate, and how those vibrations are received by the females. They found that the train-rattling behavior only occurs when females are present and that, as the tail shakes, the eyespots on the tail appear not to move, leading them to conclude that the shaking behavior enhances the appearance of the eyespots of the tail. [14] [15] In previous work, Dakin found that the hue and iridescence of the tail's eyespots contribute to the mating success of the male. [16] They also found that the tail feathers vibrate at their natural resonance frequency, producing sound waves that are within the audible range that females are able to hear. Finally, they counterintuitively found that the longer and heavier the male's tail feathers were, the faster they were able to shake their feathers. In a follow-up study published in 2018, Kane and Dakin found that the vibrations sent out by males rattling their trains are actually felt by females on the crest of their head, which vibrates in turn. [17] [18] [19] They found that at the base of the a female's crest feathers lies a tiny feather known as a filoplume, which acts as a mechanical sensor. When the crest feathers begin vibrating, the filoplume triggers a nerve cell, translating the physical vibrations of the plume into neuronal signal. To understand whether female plume vibrations were specifically in response to the mechanical signals sent out by male train rattling, Kane and Dakin used speakers to play a number of different sounds for female peacocks. The crests only vibrated in response to the train rattling sounds, with no response recorded when the researchers played white noise.

Awards & honors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawk</span> Bird of prey

Hawks are birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are widely distributed and are found on all continents except Antarctica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peafowl</span> Group of large game birds

Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera Pavo and Afropavo within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are referred to as peahens, although peafowl of either sex are often referred to colloquially as "peacocks".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accipitridae</span> Family of birds of prey

The Accipitridae is one of the three families within the order Accipitriformes, and is a family of small to large birds of prey with strongly hooked bills and variable morphology based on diet. They feed on a range of prey items from insects to medium-sized mammals, with a number feeding on carrion and a few feeding on fruit. The Accipitridae have a cosmopolitan distribution, being found on all the world's continents and a number of oceanic island groups. Some species are migratory. The family contains 255 species which are divided into 70 genera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falconry</span> Hunting with a trained bird of prey

Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person involved in falconry: a "falconer" flies a falcon; an "austringer" flies a hawk or an eagle. In modern falconry, the red-tailed hawk, Harris's hawk, and the peregrine falcon are some of the more commonly used birds of prey. The practice of hunting with a conditioned falconry bird is also called "hawking" or "gamehawking", although the words hawking and hawker have become used so much to refer to petty traveling traders, that the terms "falconer" and "falconry" now apply to most use of trained birds of prey to catch game. Many contemporary practitioners still use these words in their original meaning, however.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rough-legged buzzard</span> Species of bird

The rough-legged buzzard (Europe) or rough-legged hawk (Buteo lagopus) is a medium-large bird of prey. It is found in Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America, Europe, and Russia during the breeding season and migrates south for the winter. It was traditionally also known as the rough-legged falcon in such works as John James Audubon's The Birds of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great horned owl</span> Species of owl

The great horned owl, also known as the tiger owl, or the hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas. Its primary diet is rabbits and hares, rats and mice, and voles, although it freely hunts any animal it can overtake, including rodents and other small mammals, larger mid-sized mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. In ornithological study, the great horned owl is often compared to the Eurasian eagle-owl, a closely related species, which despite the latter's notably larger size, occupies the same ecological niche in Eurasia, and the red-tailed hawk, with which it often shares similar habitat, prey, and nesting habits by day, thus is something of a diurnal ecological equivalent. The great horned owl is one of the earliest nesting birds in North America, often laying eggs weeks or even months before other raptorial birds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cooper's hawk</span> Species of bird

Cooper's hawk is a medium-sized hawk native to the North American continent and found from southern Canada to Mexico. This species is a member of the genus Accipiter, sometimes referred to as true hawks, which are famously agile, relatively small hawks common to wooded habitats around the world and also the most diverse of all diurnal raptor genera. As in many birds of prey, the male is smaller than the female. The birds found east of the Mississippi River tend to be larger on average than the birds found to the west. It is easily confused with the smaller but similar sharp-shinned hawk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red-tailed hawk</span> Species of bird

The red-tailed hawk is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members within the genus of Buteo in North America or worldwide. The red-tailed hawk is one of three species colloquially known in the United States as the "chickenhawk", though it rarely preys on standard-sized chickens. The bird is sometimes also referred to as the red-tail for short, when the meaning is clear in context. Red-tailed hawks can acclimate to all the biomes within their range, occurring on the edges of non-ideal habitats such as dense forests and sandy deserts. The red-tailed hawk occupies a wide range of habitats and altitudes, including deserts, grasslands, coniferous and deciduous forests, agricultural fields, and urban areas. Its latitudinal limits fall around the tree line in the subarctic and it is absent from the high Arctic. Generally it favors varied habitats with open woodland, woodland edge and open terrain. It is legally protected in Canada, Mexico, and the United States by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red goshawk</span> Species of bird

The red goshawk is probably the rarest Australian bird of prey. It is found mainly in the savanna woodlands of northern Australia, particularly near watercourses. It takes a broad range of live prey, mostly birds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian peafowl</span> Species of bird

The Indian peafowl, also known as the common peafowl, and blue peafowl, is a peafowl species native to the Indian subcontinent. It has been introduced to many other countries. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are referred to as peahens, although both sexes are often referred to colloquially as a "peacock".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prairie falcon</span> Species of bird

The prairie falcon is a medium-large sized falcon of western North America. It is about the size of a peregrine falcon or a crow, with an average length of 40 cm (16 in), wingspan of approximately 1 meter (40 in), and average weight of 720 g (1.6 lb). As in all falcons, females are noticeably bigger than males. Though a separate species from the peregrine, the prairie falcon is basically an arid environment divergence of the early peregrine falcon lineage, able to subsist on less food than the peregrine, and generally lighter in weight than a peregrine of similar wing span. Having evolved in a harsh desert environment with low prey density, the prairie falcon has developed into an aggressive and opportunistic hunter of a wide range of both mammal and bird prey. It will regularly take prey from the size of sparrows to approximately its own weight, and occasionally much larger. It is the only larger falcon native only to North America. It is resident from southern Canada, through western United States, and into northern Mexico. The prairie falcon is popular as a falconry bird, where with proper training it is regarded as being as effective as the more well known peregrine falcon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pale chanting goshawk</span> Species of bird

The pale chanting goshawk is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. This hawk breeds in southern Africa and is a resident species of dry, open semi-desert with 75 cm or less annual rainfall. It is commonly seen perched on roadside telephone poles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern chanting goshawk</span> Species of bird

The eastern (pale) chanting goshawk, or Somali chanting goshawk, is a bird of prey of East Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey-bellied hawk</span> Species of bird

The grey-bellied hawk or grey-bellied goshawk is a fairly large and rare species of forest-dwelling South American bird of prey in the family Accipitridae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rufous-breasted sparrowhawk</span> Species of bird

The rufous-breasted sparrowhawk, also known as the rufous-chested sparrowhawk and as the red-breasted sparrowhawk, is a species of bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. It is found in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African goshawk</span> Species of bird

The African goshawk is an African species of bird of prey in the genus Accipiter which is the type genus of the family Accipitridae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayres's hawk-eagle</span> Species of bird

Ayres's hawk-eagle, also referred to as Ayres' eagle, is a medium-sized bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. It is native to African woodlands. Its name honors South African ornithologist Thomas Ayres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deimatic behaviour</span> Bluffing display of an animal used to startle or scare a predator

Deimatic behaviour or startle display means any pattern of bluffing behaviour in an animal that lacks strong defences, such as suddenly displaying conspicuous eyespots, to scare off or momentarily distract a predator, thus giving the prey animal an opportunity to escape. The term deimatic or dymantic originates from the Greek δειματόω (deimatóo), meaning "to frighten".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern goshawk</span> Species of bird

The northern goshawk is a species of medium-large bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, a family which also includes other extant diurnal raptors, such as eagles, buzzards and harriers. As a species in the genus Accipiter, the goshawk is often considered a "true hawk". The scientific name is Latin; Accipiter is "hawk", from accipere, "to grasp", and gentilis is "noble" or "gentle" because in the Middle Ages only the nobility were permitted to fly goshawks for falconry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gray hawk</span> Species of raptor

The gray hawk or Mexican goshawk is a smallish raptor found in open country and forest edges. It is sometimes placed in the genus Asturina as Asturina plagiata. The species was split by the American Ornithological Society (AOU) from the gray-lined hawk. The gray hawk is found from Costa Rica north into the southwestern United States.

References

  1. ↑ Amador, Suzanne Marie (1989). "Optical and X-Ray Studies of Critical Phenomena in Thin Liquid Crystal Films". Ph.D. Thesis. Bibcode:1989PhDT........41A.
  2. ↑ Pachence, J M; Amador, S; Maniara, G; Vanderkooi, J; Dutton, P L; Blasie, J K (August 1990). "Orientation and lateral mobility of cytochrome c on the surface of ultrathin lipid multilayer films". Biophysical Journal. 58 (2): 379–389. Bibcode:1990BpJ....58..379P. doi:10.1016/S0006-3495(90)82384-5. ISSN   0006-3495. PMC   1280979 . PMID   2169915.
  3. ↑ Ochs, Michael F.; Zamani, Marjon; Gomes, Gustavo Maia Rodrigues; De Oliveira Neto, Raimundo Cardoso; Kane, Suzanne Amador (2017). "Sneak peek: Raptors search for prey using stochastic head turns | Request PDF". The Auk. 134: 104–115. doi: 10.1642/AUK-15-230.1 .
  4. ↑ "A hawk's-eye view of raptor hunting". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  5. ↑ Thompson, Helen (2016-11-17). "In some ways, hawks hunt like humans". Science News. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  6. ↑ Kane, Suzanne; Fulton, Andrew H; Rosenthal, Lee J (2015-01-15). "When hawks attack: Animal-borne video studies of goshawk pursuit and prey-evasion strategies". The Journal of Experimental Biology. 218 (2): 212–22. doi:10.1242/jeb.108597. PMC   4302165 . PMID   25609783.
  7. ↑ Gorman, James (2015-03-02). "Nature's Fighter Jets With Flapping Wings". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  8. ↑ Knight, Kathryn (2015-01-15). "Goshawk hunt and prey-evasion strategies revealed". Journal of Experimental Biology. 218 (2): 161. doi: 10.1242/jeb.118539 . ISSN   1477-9145.
  9. ↑ Knight, Kathryn (2014-01-15). "Falcons head off prey for interception". Journal of Experimental Biology. 217 (2): 157. doi: 10.1242/jeb.101238 . ISSN   1477-9145.
  10. ↑ Stockton, Nick (2015-01-22). "Science Graphic of the Week: Raptor's-Eye View of the Hunt". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  11. ↑ Sample, Ian (2014-01-16). "'Falcon cam' reveals how the birds of prey close in for the kill". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  12. ↑ Kane, Suzanne Amador; Montgomerie, Robert; Hare, James F.; McCrossan, Owen; Dakin, Roslyn (2016-04-27). "Biomechanics of the Peacock's Display: How Feather Structure and Resonance Influence Multimodal Signaling". PLOS ONE. 11 (4): e0152759. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1152759D. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152759 . ISSN   1932-6203. PMC   4847759 . PMID   27119380.
  13. ↑ Gorman, James (2016-04-27). "Peacocks Don't Just Show Their Feathers, They Rattle Them". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  14. ↑ "Train-Rattling Peacocks Are Biomechanical Wonders". D-brief. 2016-04-27. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  15. ↑ Thompson, Helen (2017-04-12). "Peacocks twerk to shake their tail feathers". Science News. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  16. ↑ Montgomerie, Robert; Dakin, Roslyn (2013-09-01). "Eye for an eyespot: how iridescent plumage ocelli influence peacock mating success". Behavioral Ecology. 24 (5): 1048–1057. doi: 10.1093/beheco/art045 . ISSN   1045-2249.
  17. ↑ Yong, Ed (2018-12-21). "A Courting Peacock Can Shake Its Partner's Head From Afar". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  18. ↑ Dakin, Roslyn; Beveren, Daniel Van; Kane, Suzanne Amador (2018-11-28). "Biomechanics of the peafowl's crest reveals frequencies tuned to social displays". PLOS ONE. 13 (11): e0207247. Bibcode:2018PLoSO..1307247K. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207247 . ISSN   1932-6203. PMC   6261573 . PMID   30485316.
  19. ↑ Allen, Michael (2018-11-28). "Watch a peacock get a female's attention—by making her head vibrate". Science | AAAS. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  20. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.