Prior to graduate school most of my experience was in marine ecology, but while taking classes I became fascinated with biogeochemistry. Though I still consider myself an ecologist, my interests have broadened to encompass how ecological responses to environmental change modulate energy and resource flows in marine systems.
My dissertation research is on sediment responses to the diel oxygen cycle. Oxygen availability is a fundamental parameter that governs sediment function by driving the metabolism and behaviors of organisms inhabiting sediments. Though sediment systems have been well studied under steady-state oxygen conditions, both high and low, very little is known about how they respond to fluctuations in oxygen. Yet the diel oxygen cycle, in which oxygen peaks during the day due to photosynthesis then drops at night from respiration, is extremely common in the shallow marine systems that are critical sites of nutrient and organic matter cycling. The diel cycle affects both biogeochemical processes in sediments and the behavior and activity of sediment macrofauna that influence those processes, sometimes quite dramatically. We know that macrofaunal responses to hypoxia vary considerably among taxa, but how those behaviors change with fluctuating oxygen is almost entirely unknown. This is a major hole in our understanding of sediments’ role in coastal marine systems. The goal of my dissertation is to investigate how the diel cycle drives short-term change in behaviors and resulting sediment function, and whether it may influence estimates of diagenesis over the long term.

I graduated with a BS in Biology and a Marine Science minor from William and Mary in 2014, and began a marine science graduate program in 2015. I am now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Alabama at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab studying coastal sediment responses to the diel oxygen cycle.

Most of the research in my laboratory involves the evolution of complex traits. Through empirical, theoretical, and methodological studies, we are also helping to develop the field of evolutionary physiology (e.g., see Annual Review of Physiology [1994] 56:579-621; BioEssays [2021] 44:e2100167). Physiology is the study of how organisms work. Evolution is the study of how organisms have changed (genetically) across generations. Thus, evolutionary physiology is the study of how and why the way organisms work has changed over time. For example, does the way an organism work constrain the way it may evolve? Answers to such questions require a deep understanding of both proximate and ultimate mechanisms, including phenotypic plasticity and early-life effects. Accordingly, my graduate students come through the Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology Graduate Program in the Department of E.E.O. Biology, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, Genetics, Genomics & Bioinformatics Graduate Program, and the Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences. As physiology cannot properly be understood in isolation from genetics, morphology, biochemistry, and behavior, my general approach is integrative and hence crosses traditional boundaries between disciplines.

Ph.D.: University of California, Riverside
Postdoctoral Research: University of Washington
Faculty: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Faculty: University of California, Riverside

The Garner Lab for Animal Morphology & Mechanics (GLAMM) is focused on elucidating the connections between form, function, environment, and behavior in both terrestrial and aquatic systems of animal attachment and locomotion. We primarily conduct these investigations using geckos, anoles, and sea urchins as model systems, but are also exploring these connections in benthic station-holding fishes, such as marine sculpins.

Ongoing studies in our lab typically fall within one of three research thrusts:

(1) Biomechanics of Attachment & Locomotion under Ecologically-Relevant Conditions
(2) Functional Morphology of Animal Attachment & Locomotor Systems
(3) Mechanical Principles of Adhesion & Locomotion

Visit garnerlab.org to learn more!

Austin M. Garner is a functional morphologist and biomechanic with a fundamental interest in how animals interface with their environment. Specifically, he studies how animals attach to surfaces in variable environments and employs an interdisciplinary research approach that combines expertise from both the life and physical sciences. Garner’s research currently focuses on the attachment systems of lizards (geckos and anoles) and sea urchins.

Prior to joining Syracuse University as an Assistant Professor of Integrative Animal Biology, Garner was a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Villanova University from 2021-22 where he taught courses in animal behavior and open-source biological instrumentation and studied the functional morphology and biomechanics of sea urchin adhesion. Garner earned a Ph.D. in Integrated Bioscience in 2021 and a B.S. in Biology (magna cum laude) in 2016, both from the University of Akron.

I am an organismal biologist studying ecoimminology. Specifically, I study how cold temperatures affect physiological responses to infection with a bacterial pathogen. I would like to learn how to use these data to parameterize models predicting disease spread within populations in variable climates.

I am a third year graduate student at Virginia Tech pursuing my PhD.

I consider myself an integrative evolutionary ecologist. I'm interested in questions at the intersection of evolution, ecology, physiology, and behavior. I'm particularly interested in the ecological and evolutionary consequences of phenotypic plasticity, the role of phenotypic integration in constraining and facilitating adaptive evolution, trade-offs between physiological tolerance and biotic interactions, and the determinants of vulnerability to climate change. My lab works on fish, birds, insects, and amphibians depending on the question.

B.A. University of California, Los Angeles 1991
PhD University of Montana 1998
Post-doc University of California, Riverside 1999-2003
Assistant Professor, Colorado State University 2003-2009
Associate Professor, Colorado State University, 2009-2015
Professor, Colorado State University, 2015-present

I am an evolutionary physiologist. I am interested in how organisms interact with and adapt to their surroundings, on time scales from minutes to millenia. I have worked in a diversity of systems and habitats, from deep-sea fish to Drosophila, but the fundamental questions are the same: How do environmental variables affect organismal function, and how do populations and species evolve in response? I take a vertically integrated approach, drawing on techniques and ideas from evolution, physiological ecology, organismal biology, functional genomics, genetics and biophysics.

I grew up on the east coast of the US. In college I majored in chemistry while taking as many ecology courses as I could. I got my PhD from Scripps Institution of Oceanography working on deep-sea fish. I started working on insects as a post-doc at UC Davis. Since then I've had faculty positions at UCI, University of Arizona and UNLV.

Interested in bio-inspired robotic control and design, locomotion, computer vision, and autonomous navigation of unpredictable terrain

Currently working with Sawyer Fuller in the Autonomous Insect Robotics Laboratory at the University of Washington

I currently work with a captive colony of zebra finches under the advisory of Dr. Haruka Wada at Auburn University. I am generally interested in topics such as endocrinology, stress physiology, animal behavior, and development. More specifically, I am intrigued how exposure to developmental stressors affects the growth, endocrine systems, behavior, and maturation of vertebrates. My current research is focused on how exposure to microplastics alters these variables in developing zebra finches.

Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne in the United kingdom, I have lived in Corvallis, Oregon, USA since 2010. I completed an honors undergraduate in biology at Oregon State University in 2025 where I defended my thesis on the effects of predator presence on suburban songbird behavior and physiology. I am currently living in Auburn, Alabama, USA to pursue my PhD in biological sciences as part of the Wada lab at Auburn University department of biological sciences.