Research
Thanks to the superb collaborations with my students and faculty at the UW, nationally and internationally we have been able to develop and test our user-friendly generic software, Niche Mapper and NicheMapR that can compute the local microenvironments and an animal’s coupled heat and mass balances required for survival, growth and reproductive potential for any locality on earth given the geographic coordinates and their 3D anatomy, specific physiological properties and behaviors. These computer models have been tested on more than 50 representatives of the major classes of wild vertebrates, domestic cows, and several species of invertebrates on land and at sea. We have looked at the energetics and distributions of animals in the geological past, the present and then asked the consequences of climate change on the distributions and requirements for survival and reproductive potential into the future. We have also explored environmentally relevant ultra low-level pesticide mixtures on nervous, endocrine (reproductive) and immune system functions and how they may undermine survival, growth and reproductive potential. As part of developing a mechanism for detecting subclinical infections that can impact growth and reproductive potential we received several patents for a process using a novel device that ultimately measured stable isotopes in breath in less than 30 seconds to a precision that allowed reliable detection.
