Research

I am a comparative physiologist primarily examining ectothermic vertebrates, and my research centers around the relationship between muscle physiology, energetics, the cardiovascular system, and locomotor ability in ectothermic vertebrates. My interests generally emphasize the metabolic costs associated with locomotion and the ecological and behavioral consequences of these costs.

I am currently investigating meta-analyses of existing data relative to physiological vagility, as determined from metabolic capacity and costs of locomotion, in order to understand the relationship to dispersal ability, migration and genetic heterogeneity within vertebrate groups of differing metabolic capacity and locomotor modes, and more specifically within amphibians.

Most recently, I have been investigating a wide range of fishes relative to the vascular resistances of the systemic and branchial systems, intracardiac pressure development, and the relationship to metabolic capacity, specially with the intent of understanding cardiac performance and peripheral resistance changes associated with the water-land transition of fish and amphibians.

In the recent past, my research labs have investigated the physiological and morphological adaptation to long distance migration in coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) after reintroduction into the mid-Columbia and Snake River systems. Katie Wagner (MS) has recently graduated with a masters degree from my lab primarily investigating this issue. My lab has also investigated the training effects on salmonids during early development in order to examine the phenotypic plasticity of the locomotor and cardiovascular systems in kokanee salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka).

I have also used bioenergetics as a tool to understand the interactions between metabolism, temperature, growth, and prey consumption. My former graduate student, Chris Moan (MS) completed work modeling the bioenergetics of burbot (Lota lota) while Nick Bean (MS) investigated northern pike (Esox lucius), an invasive and expanding species in the Pend Oreille River system.

My dissertation work examined recovery from varying types of activity in the desert iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis). I have also researched the effects on developmental temperature effects on muscle, morphology, and locomotor ability in salamander larvae, and body water homeostasis in amphibians.