Most Andean birds inhabit narrow elevational
ranges thought to be set by a combination of biological and environmental factors. Very few species
inhabit more than 3,000 meters in
elevation. Those that do must compensate for large shifts in
temperture, UV exposure, and the partial pressure of oxygen. Are these exceptional species
physiologically adapting in the face of gene flow or are plastic and behavioral
responses allowing them to persist across diverse environmental conditions and preventing them from
specializing on narrower elevation zones?
In Gadek et al. 2017 I found that elevational generalists are either in the process of
diversifying, expanding across
the gradient, or undertaking seasonal or resource-pulse driven elevational migration, and that
elevational generalism is an unstable and ephemeral condition.
The evolutionary history of neotropical birds has undoubtedly been influenced by Andean uplift, leaving us with current patterns of high diversity and endemism in and around the Andes. I ask: How did modern elevational ranges form and change over time? How rapidly have they shifted? Are upward and downward shifts symmetrically distributed across the elevation gradient? and how do patterns of range evolution differ among clades? This work is being done in collaboration with Eli Stone and Selina Bauernfeind.
Plastic responses to acute changes in elevation are
well documented and shared across many vertebrates.
Similarly, genetic adaptation to high elevation environments often acts on predictable physiological
pathways. But how do these processes interact, and how do they transition between one another?
To ask these questions, we sampled the entire Peruvian range of two co-distributed marsh birds (
Phleocryptes melanops & Tachuris
rubrigastra). These birds have disjunct elevational ranges,
inhabiting coastal marshes at sea level and high elevation marshes above 4000 meters. Are the high
elevation populations adapted(ing) to the dramatically lower oxygen availability? Or has gene flow
and/or recent colonization failed to suppress short term acclimatization responses? This work is in
collaboration with Jessie
Williamson.
Avian malaria is a widspread chronic disease of birds
caused
by
multiple
Apicomplexan organisms.
To understand how host and pathogen communities vary across the landscape we surveyed birds and
parasite
communities among
Southwestern sky islands and simulated null communities to compare against empirical data.
We
found that parasite communities differed between sky islands relative to null community models,
suggesting idiosyncratic colonization and extirpation dynamics. This work is in collaboration with Dr. Christopher
Witt,
Lisa Barrow, Jessie Williamson, Selina
Bauernfeind, and Rosario
Marroquin-Flores.
The sandhill crane (Grus canadensis ) is among the few bird species that exhibit tracheal elongation. Within this species there is substantial size dimorphism between subspecies. Jones & Witt 2014 found that the smaller subspecies that undertake longer distance migrations had proportionally longer trachea hypothesized to make smaller birds sound bigger. I am interested in assessing the symmetry and strength of sexual dimorphism within sandhill cranes.
Microbiomes are being published at a rapid pace. Yet
wild
bird microbiomes and specifically their fungal components
(mycobiomes) are largely undescribed. Furthermore, how microbiomes are structured by phylogenetic, geographic, and life history traits
remains understudied.
Baseline knowledge of the makeup of these communities and factors that affect their assembly and
maintenance hold important implications for disease ecology, public health, and large scale
coevolutionary processes.
We are describing the first lung mycobiomes of birds
and modeling the associations of phylogeny, morphology, and ecology with lung fungal communities. This
project is in collaboration with Paris
Hamm & Michael
Mann utilizing samples collected and stored in the Museum of Southwestern Biology.
Jessie Williamson is an evolutionary ecologist interested in the evolutionary and ecological implications of elevational migration, parasite host dynamics, and high-altitude adaptation in birds. Besides always expanding her research scope in novel ways, Jessie is a unstoppable field biologist and committed collaborator who oozes confidence under the most challenging conditions. Jessie is currently a NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Rose Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Emil Bautista is an expert field technician. He has undertaken dozens of expeditions with the University of New Mexico, the University of Alaska, and Louisiana State University among others. Emil has over 15 years of experience prepping avian round skins, taking detailed specimen data, performing physiological assays, and managing the logistics of field expeditions. He is an enthusiastic naturalist, loving father, and grandfather.
Paloma Ordoñez was an amazing scientist who I was lucky enough to work with for two expeditions in 2017. Paloma passed away in 2020. I will always remember her as an incredibly skilled field biologist, preparator, communicator, and friend . She is deeply missed within our scientific community.
Eli Stone is a computer scientist and ecologist (B.S. UCLA) interested in uncovering biologically meaningful signals in phylogenies. By combining his passions of algorithms and ecology he hopes to shed new light on our understanding of the tree of life. He is an avid gardener, naturalist, and builder.
Selina Bauernfeind is a computational biologist (B.S. UNM) interested in developing null models and simulations using biological data. Selina earned her master's degree as a member of the Jacobson lab at UNM, simulating biomolecular interactions using techniques from robotics, graph theory, bioinformatics, biophysics, and machine learning. She now works as a computer scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.Selina is an relentless hiker, naturalist, and craftsperson.
The MSB houses one of the largest natural history collections in the Southwestern United States. This global collection spanning 120 years has been instrumental in my training and research, allowing me to access numerous data types on thousands of species.
The Center for Ornithology and Biodiversity (CORBIDI) is a Peruvian non-profit committed to research and conservation of Peruvian fauna. UNM's MSB has worked closely with CORBIDI's researchers in the field and on publications.