"But the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster." - David Hume  Welcome. I am an aquatic ecologist currently pursuing my PhD at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). I am studying the various aspects of ecology and physiology that regulate growth, development and the expression and maintenance of alternative phenotypes. I primarily study facultatively paedomorphic salamanders using long-term outdoor mesocosm experiments, but I am also generally interested in density-dependent processes. My current projects focus on the life-history effects driven by chemical cues, dissolved oxygen, exogenous stress hormones and interspecific competition. I also investigate how aquatic communities assemble through dispersal and colonization. Using a variety of sizes of artificial pools, I examine the effects of patch quality on both the colonization of beetles and oviposition of mosquitoes and tree frogs. I am currently studying tradeoffs associated with patch quality, phylogenetic signal of predator kairomones and the proximate source of predator kairomones. |