Karry Kazial

Dr. Karry Kazial serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the State University of New York at Fredonia, where her research bridges animal communication theory and wildlife conservation practice with specialized expertise in bat bioacoustics.

Research Focus: Her groundbreaking work demonstrates echolocation calls function as communication signals enabling individual recognition among bats—a trait co-opted from natural selection for prey capture. Current investigations explore bat-insect predator-prey dynamics during insect mate attraction and conservation applications including bat house optimization, artificial lighting impacts, and acoustic habitat monitoring.

Academic Engagement: Dr. Kazial actively mentors students in field and laboratory research, teaching core courses from Organismal Biology to Animal Communication. Her lab employs habituation experiments and geographic variation studies to unravel the communicative complexity of sonar calls while addressing urgent conservation challenges through empirical field studies.

Research Infrastructure: Based in Fredonia's Science Center, the lab utilizes acoustic monitoring equipment for field studies and controlled experimental setups for behavioral analysis, with ongoing projects spanning bat-insect interactions to urban lighting impacts on foraging ecology.