OSyM Participants

    • Type of Researcher
    Members
    Geoffrey Legault
    Modeler
    Postdoctoral Fellow
    University of British Columbia
    glegau01@mail.ubc.ca
    Research Summary

    All ecological processes exhibit randomness or stochasticity. For complex systems with multiple interacting processes, the effects of stochasticity can combine in unexpected ways, leading to outcomes not predicted by traditional deterministic models. My research focuses on developing stochastic models of ecological processes that account for such randomness and thereby make better predictions. Where possible, I combine theoretical model building with empirical model validation. I am especially interested in applying stochastic modeling to better understand how populations and phenotypes will respond to climate change.


    Biographical Info

    I became interested in pursuing ecology as a career after working as an undergraduate with Robert Jefferies (University of Toronto) in the Canadian Arctic. Following an M.Sc. on Arctic plant and insect phenology, I switched focus to ecological theory and for my Ph.D. (University of Colorado at Boulder) studied the effects of stochasticity on populations. My current research continues to focus on applications of stochastic modeling, particularly with respect to physiology and dispersal.


    Danielle Levesque
    Organismal Biologist
    Associate Professor
    University of Maine
    University of Maine
    danielle.l.levesque@maine.edu
    Website
    Twitter
    Research Summary

    Predicting species distributions relies on our ability to estimate the costs of life under current climatic conditions, and to predict how costs will change under future climate scenarios. Mammals are endotherms, which allows them to perform optimally over a wide range of environmental temperatures. However, the energetic costs of maintaining an elevated body temperature varies widely over the range of environmental temperatures experienced by an animal over its lifetime. Surprisingly, our understanding of the costs of living and the relationship between environmental temperatures and performance in mammals, is poor, especially with regards to the effects of high environmental temperature and humidity. Using mammals as model organisms, my research seeks to address gaps in our fundamental understanding of mammalian energetics using a combination of laboratory and field-based projects aimed at elucidating the effects of activity, humidity, and high ambient temperature on the performance (and ultimately the distribution) of endotherms.


    Biographical Info

    I am an evolutionary and ecological physiologist primarily interested in the comparative energetics and the evolution of mammalian temperature regulation. My research lies at the intersections of comparative physiology, ecology and evolutionary biology, and the synergies between these disciplines. Through field and laboratory based experiments, I seek to understand how rigidity or flexibility in metabolism and body temperature regulation affects the energetics of a species, and how their evolutionary history has shaped these patterns. The data obtained through studying thermoregulation and energetics can have multiple applications. By understanding the dynamics of the relationship between an animal and its thermal environment, we can better predict energy budgets and responses to changes in climate and resource availability.


    Ofir Levy
    Modeler, Organismal Biologist
    Senior Lecturer
    Tel Aviv University
    levyofi@gmail.com
    Research Summary

    My overall goals are to improve our theoretical and applied understanding of the effects of climate on ecological systems. To this end, I develop ecological and physiological approaches that bring new mechanistic insights into how environments affect organisms. Such insights are crucial for understanding ecological responses to climate change and for developing management and conservation strategies that can help species maintain their ecological niches under future climates.


    Biographical Info

    I am a Senior Lecturer(an equivalent title to Assistant Professor in the USA) at the School of Zoology of Tel Aviv University since 2018. I earned my Ph.D. in Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology in 2010 and completed a postdoctoral appointment at the School of Life Sciences of Arizona State University in 2017. For my dissertation at Tel Aviv University, I was primarily concerned with understanding how ecological, physiological, and evolutionary forces shape organismal activity patterns in the Judean desert, a relatively harsh and unpredictable environment. During my postdoctoral appointment, I have shifted my model animals to reptiles, studying the biological effects of climate change using empirical observations and individual-based models. Currently, my lab broadly explores subjects in ecological physiology and climate change, with a strong emphasis on the relationships between animals and the environment. In particular, I integrate remote sensing data with microclimate and individual-based models on the one hand, and empirical observations at climatic gradients on the other.


    Liang Ma
    Modeler, Organismal Biologist
    Postdoctoral Researcher
    Princeton University
    liangm@princeton.edu
    Research Summary

    I have experiences in integrating empirical data and mechanistic models to tackle difficult questions. For example, I examined hypothesis about the evolution of viviparity at a global scale by mapping soil temperatures into developmental traits (Ma et al. 2018, Global Ecology and Biogeography). By modeling the pattern revealed by a control experiment testing the effect of embryonic movement on sex ratio of TSD species, I predicted that such embryonic movement could buffer the variation of sex ratio among seasons and across latitudes (Ye et al. 2019 Current Biology; co-first author). I developed a life-history model to compare the impacts of climate change on viviparous and oviparous squamates (under review). I also incorporated the plasticity of embryonic thermal tolerance into a mechanistic model to reveal how the plasticity would affect the heat stress experienced by developing embryos (under review).


    Biographical Info

    I am a conservation physiologist interested in exploring how species adapt to thermal gradients through time and space, and how they would respond to global change. I have a particular interest in integrating empirical studies and mechanistic models to reveal ecological patterns across scales. I’m currently working with David Wilcove as a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton University. I acquired a PhD degree of ecology in 2017 at Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (supervised by Wei-guo Du) and did a two-year postdoctoral research in the same lab. I also did a 1-year internship in University of Washington (supervised by Raymond Huey and Lauren Buckley) during my PhD.


    James Marden
    Organismal Biologist
    Professor of Biology and Associate Director Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences
    Penn State University
    Mueller Lab
    jhm10@psu.edu
    Research Summary

    My research focuses on the physiology and ecology of insect flight; molecular genetics of disease resistance in tropical trees; and integrative biology.


    Keywords: ecology, physiology, biomechanics, functional genomics
    Lynn Martin
    Organismal Biologist
    Professor
    University of South Florida
    lbmartin@usf.edu
    Martin lab at USF
    Twitter
    Research Summary

    Marty's is generally interested in the ecophysiology of wild vertebrates, especially birds and mammals. Research in the lab now addresses what physiological and behavioral traits enable some individuals to have disproportionate effects on the spread and dilution of infectious diseases, how molecular epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation underlie the phenotypic plasticity that enables some organisms to be exceptional colonizers, and how body size constrains the architecture of the immune systems and other defenses of species.


    Biographical Info

    Marty earned a BS and an MS in Biology from Virginia Commonwealth University, followed by an MS and PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton. He then spent 3 years as a postdoc in Psychology and Neuroscience at The Ohio State University and joined the University of South Florida in 2007 as an Assistant Professor. Since 2018, he has been Professor in Global and Planetary Health in the USF College of Public Health.


    Omera Matoo
    Organismal Biologist
    Assistant Professor
    University of South Dakota
    Department of Biology
    Omera.Matoo@usd.edu
    Research Summary

    My research program investigates the genetic and physiological mechanisms by which organisms maintain fitness under stress. Our lab uses both model organism (Drosophila) and natural populations of freshwater mollusks to address genotype to phenotype relationships.


    Biographical Info

    I am an integrative biologist by training. I did my PhD in marine ecophysiology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. My postdoctoral training, supported by a fellowship from NSF EPSCoR, was in evolutionary physiology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.


    Alexander Mauro
    Organismal Biologist
    Graduate Student
    Colorado State University
    amauro@colostate.edu
    The Evolutionary Ecology of Ranges
    Twitter
    Research Summary

    My research focuses on a question that has been of great interest to evolutionary biologists since the inception of the field: why does natural selection not select for greater environmental tolerance and hence greater ranges? I investigate this question by studying what sets the range limits of two species of guppies on the island of Trinidad. My research can be broken up into three main themes:1) Tradeoffs between ecologically relevant traits​ can set range limits. I'm currently investigating how competition and salinity tolerance tradeoff by studying guppy behavior, growth, and gene expression during a simulated saltwater invasion, 2) Once a population moves past its range and enters a novel environment, the type of phenotypic plasticity the population exhibits will influence ​its persistence in and adaptation to the new environment. I'm investigating this dynamic in the classic high-predation, low-predation guppy system, & 3) Gene flow from other populations can "swamp" out adaptive alleles and prevent local adaptation & set range limits. To investigate this I'm conducting a population genomics study on guppies in 3 estuarine rivers in collaboration with the Whitehead Lab at UC Davis.


    Biographical Info

    I am an evolutionary ecologist and 4th year PhD candidate in the Ghalambor lab at Colorado State. For my PhD I’m investigating what prevents guppies from expanding their ranges in the estuaries of Trinidad to better understand the adaptive process. I use a combination of genetics, behavior, and ecological studies to do this. As an undergrad, I worked on animal behavior, biomechanics, and eomorphology projects while at Claremont McKenna College. In addition to research goals, I also aim to have an active outreach program and currently accomplish this by guest-teaching “guppy” labs in local middle schools and high schools (I also coach middle school cross country!).