Project

How the environment influences how animal hosts perform in response to parasites, pathogens and other microorganisms

At the center of my line of research are host-parasite interactions. Much like the way predators exploit their prey, parasites thrive at the expense of their hosts. The intimacy of both types of interactions lead to many ecological (e.g., population cycles) and evolutionary (e.g., co-evolutionary arms races) phenomena that are central to current biological understanding.

Description

I am most interested in understanding how the environment, broadly defined, influences how animal hosts perform and adapt in response to parasites or other “guests” (including, e.g., microorganisms that do not necessarily negatively impact fitness via disease). I work mostly at level of animal populations and species, though recent collaborations inside and outside the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation group have led to projects focused on higher organizational levels (e.g., assemblages).

I study host-parasite interactions but with a strong focus on the host perspective. In other words, I study the physiological ecology of hosts. Much of my work relates to the even more sharply defined, yet interdisciplinary research field of ecological immunology.

The specific research questions that I most frequently ask can put under two headers.

1) When studying populations, my overarching question is this: how do ecological and environmental characteristics shape host physiology and immunology via life history mechanisms and trade-offs? I often study populations (or species) across different environmental gradients. Whether comparing island endemics with their continental ancestors or populations of wood mice from forest patches of different sizes, work at this level helps fill a clear knowledge gap. Simply put, little is currently known about the causes and consequences of variation in how wild hosts deal with their different parasites.

2) Work at the individual level also offers exciting prospects. Here I am interested in answering the following question: how do physiological condition, health, and (co)infection status influence one another and other ecologically relevant traits of animal hosts? These other traits can, for example, involve movement characteristics (which, incidentally, relates a crosscutting theme of WEC), stress responses, or behavior, all of which contribute to host fitness.

Ultimately, answering both types of questions and understanding better the physiological ecology of hosts will help us to protect the health of wildlife, domestic animals, and humans.

I frequently collaborate with behavioral ecologists, immunologists, and animal scientists outside of WEC. Within WEC, I work most closely with two disease ecologists: Dr. Fred de Boer and Dr. Helen Esser. With one WEC’s crosscutting research themes being “disease and physiology,” there are, in fact, countless opportunities to work together with my groupmates down the hall and with researchers around the globe.

Publications