A brief summary of current main projects:
stress physiology in an ecological context
Organisms in the wild frequently encounter "stressors" in their environments, such as predation risk, competition within groups, and resource scarcity. Understanding how animals respond to stress, and what the consequences are, is increasingly important in a rapidly changing world. My research investigates the impacts of ecologically relevant stressors (with a particular focus on predator-prey interactions) on vertebrate behaviour and fitness, and endocrine mechanisms driving these effects. This work has involved projects on snowshoe hares, fence lizards, and tree swallows.
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MATERNAL EFFECTS and investment
Mothers can influence the characteristics of their offspring beyond the genes they pass on. The environment mothers experience can alter offspring traits, for example via hormones passed on in eggs or through the placenta. I'm interested in a number of questions along these lines:
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sociality and the post-natal environment
I'm interested in not just the evolutionary origins of social behaviour, but also the potential for sociality and parental care to contribute to evolution. My PhD research investigated the causes and consequences of allonursing behaviour in meerkats. I am now interested in how the social environment might alter the effects of stress (for example, through social buffering), and the outcomes of maternal effects generally. I am currently testing these questions using social lizards in Tasmania.
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Collaborators:
Tobias Uller, Lund University Geoff While, University of Tasmania Tony Williams, Simon Fraser University Tracy Langkilde, Penn State University Julian Avery, Penn State University |
Michael Sheriff, UMass Dartmouth Christopher Howey, University of Scranton Kevin Kohl, University of Pittsburgh Beth Reinke, Northeastern Illinois University Jen Moss, University of Georgia |