José Serrano  - PhD student at University of Chile

Recently contributed posts:

• Planning an overseas lab visit

​Since I can remember, I wanted to work on something related to nature. But I also wanted to be a journalist because I'm very excited about human communication. The similarity of the voice on the radio seems to me a fascinating experience. During the time I also ran the high school radio program, spreading Latin folk music across a small city in Mexico. Then I went to study biology and the axolotls caught me like Julio Cortazar in his story. Ever since then I’ve been interested in the reproduction of amphibians. I study frogs to try and understand their processes of communication and exchange of signals.

My research interests are related with signal recognition in frogs, especially in species with female vocalization. Through playback experiments, social network tools and genetic analysis I try to understand which ecological benefits are mediating the evolution of vocal signals in the Darwin’s frog Rhinoderma darwinii. In addition, I am interested in the reproductive ecology and conservation of amphibians – in particular by species with non-aquatic life histories.