Overview
My research program addresses how organisms cope with challenges and changes in the environment. Rapid flexibility in behavior and physiology is a crucial component of an effective response to stressors. Yet there is remarkable variation within and across populations in the flexibility of phenotypic traits, as well as in the ability to survive and reproduce when facing challenges. Why do individuals respond to the same stressor in markedly different ways? Why are some populations more phenotypically flexible than others? How does selection shape physiological and behavioral traits, and their flexibility? Our lab addresses these fundamental questions by investigating the function, development, and evolution of hormonal and behavioral traits across differing ecological contexts.
I teach in BioEE 1780: Introduction to Evolutionary Biology and Diversity, BioEE 7650: Special Topics in Evolution and Ecology: Professional Development and BioEE 4660: Physiological Ecology.
Research Focus
Our lab studies the mechanisms of phenotypic flexibility, with a particular emphasis on the response to challenges. Many of our members use tree swallows as a model species, with ongoing research in both a large local breeding population, and through comparative studies in populations breeding across North America, from Alaska to Tennessee. Students are also addressing similar questions in other systems, including in captive insects. We are currently focused on three major research areas: 1) Why some individuals – and some populations – cope with challenges better than others, 2) How social interactions and stressors change the biology of individuals that experience them, and 3) How endocrine traits evolve through natural and sexual selection.”
Publications
Current list of publications.
