|
Research | Publications | People | Teaching | Contact | Home | ||||
|
Our research focuses on the evolution, environmental drivers, and physiological mechanisms of life histories in vertebrates. We answer fundamental questions in aging evolution and ecology using field studies of natural populations, physiological and molecular experimentation, and mathematical modeling. We focus currently on the late-life history, and are primarily interested in the evolution of senescence and lifespan. Our current projects involve dissecting the action of putative aging genes in reptiles, testing for how reptiles escape physiological aging, and modeling senescent rates in mortality and reproduction wild and semi-provisioned primates . The integration of immune function, cellular stress response, and aging in wild populations of garter snake (Thamnophis elegans).
We are asking how immune function (innate Summary of differences between slow-living and fast-living garter snake ecotypes around Eagle Lake, CA [pdf] Back to Top
Comparative Genomics of Aging genes in the reptiles. We are broadly interested in dissecting the action and regulation of known longevity genes in reptiles, a group with negligible senescence. Toward this end, we are conducting transcriptome sequencing tests of the evolution of genes involved in metabolic stress and aging. Beginning with the garter snake, we have performed 454 (long read) sequencing of the snake transcriptome for gene discovery and annotation. We have then used RNA-seq (shorter read) transcript sequencing to test for gene expression differences across the transcriptome with an eye toward putative longevity genes and pathways.
Biodemographic indices of reproductive senescence in baboons
Actuarial aging in wild primate populations. In collaboration with many PIs that have long-term censuses of wild primates, we are modeling the rate of actuarial and reproductive senescence in representative species across the primate phylogeny. http://plhdb.nescent.org/ Back to Top
| ||||||||||