Dr. Reed's Research & Student Projects
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS:
I have had the honor of being a Fulbright Scholar to Thailand twice. As a result, I have built collaboration with the Departments of Forest Biology (Dr. Yongyut Trisurat, Dr. Vijak Chimchome, and Dr. Naris Bhumpakpan) and Genetics (Dr. Somsak Apisitwanich; http://genetics.sci.ku.ac.th/Eng/inde_eng.html) at Kasetsart University (มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์); and with Dr. George A. Gale (Director of the Conservation Ecology Program; http://www.kmutt.ac.th/conservationecology/) at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. Examples of curent projects I am involved in include a three-year funded project on the population size, demographics, and population genetics of Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and sun bear (Ursus malayanus) in Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai forest complex; prey and habitat preferences as well as interactions among tiger (Panthera tigris), Asiatic leopard (Panthera tigris), dhole (Cuon alpinus), and clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) across Thailand; population genetics and phylogeography of tigers within Thailand in collaboration with Dave Smith (http://fwcb.cfans.umn.edu/personnel/faculty/smith/); the distribution of elephants within Kaeng Krachan National Park (แก่งกระจาน) and how that distribution relates to resources and human-elephant conflict; using microsatellite data to examine relatedness among helpers and nestlings in a long-term field study of nesting success in the cooperative breeding puff-throated bulbul (Alophoixus pallidus); and the genetics of an isolated population of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis).
Multiple collaborative projects with Professor Charles Fox (http://www.uky.edu/~cfox/) at the University of Kentucky. The projects focus on inbreeding-stress interactions, the ability of populations to purge their genetic load under different inbreeding scenarios, and/or the effects of gene flow in the face of local adaptation. All experiments use various species of seed-feeding beetles as a model system.
Collaboration with the Centre for Environmental Stress Research at Åarhus University (Denmark) (http://mit.biology.au.dk/aces/). My collaborators are Drs. Torsten N. Kristensen, Cino Pertoldi, and Volker Leschcke. We recently started experiments, using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism, to try and determine the boundary conditions under which selection can maintain genetic diversity even at very small population sizes and how well the retention of molecular genetic variation correlates with fitness across multiple environments. I recently completed a four-week visit at Åarhus University in August 2011. We are also collaborating on the genomics and conservation genetics of European bison (Bison bonasus) and wolves (Canis lupus) in Białowieża Forest (Poland).
Student Projects:
Apinya Chaitae (หนู): Congratulations to Apinya!! She successfully defended her Masters Thesis in April. Apinya's is a Masters resarch focused on the demographics, diet, and growth rate of the monocled cobra (Naja kaouthia). She is particularly interested in how harvesting for local consumption impacts the viability of populations in central Thailand. She will soon publish parts of her thesis work, but plans to continue doing capture-mark-recapture for several years to improve her estimates of size-specific surviable and fecundity in this species.
Ken Sterling: Congratulations to Ken!! He successfully defended his Masters Thesis in April. Ken will be moving on to a Ph.D. program under the supervision of my colleague Dr. Karen Mock at Utah State University. Ken's project was performed in collaboration with Dr. Mel Warren (USDA; http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/staff/631) and Dr. Brice Noonan. Ken's project involved studying the ecology, life history, and phylogeography of the locally endemic (exists in only two watersheds in northern Mississippi) Yazoo darter (Etheostoma raneyi). Ken has drafted two very interesting papers on the genetics of this species, both slated for quick submission to Molecular Ecology. Further papers on the conservation and ecology of this species will follow. Preliminary data shows that the darters can surive and reproduce in areas that they have previously been extirpated from with habitat restoration. Further the darters are capapble of migrating upstream for at least 800 meters to find suitable habitat.
Drew Hataway: Congratulations to Drew. He successfully defended his Ph.D Dissertation in August. Drew's research was on how hurricanes, habitat fragmentation, and anthropogenic disturbances have interacted to shape the population dynamics and population genetics of a dune-specialist spider (Arctosa sanctaerosae) of the Northern Gulf Coast (NGC) ecosystem.
Joy Liao is a Ph.D. candidate who is building stochastic computer simulations. Her first model looks at time until extinction in populations with and without inbreeding-stress interactions. Our published paper suggests that median time to extinction is shortened by 23% when the interaction is included and that this is true for a range of values for carrying capacity, frequency of occurrence for the stressful environment, and number of lethal equivalents. Her second model will examine the evolution of fitness, genetic diversity, and genetic correlations when there are multiple stresses (e.g., drought, disease) impacting population dynamics and new mutations have different correlation structures for the selection coefficients in the different environmental states.
Sanaya Bamji is a new Ph.D. student working on the genetics of captive and reintroduced populations of alligator snapping turtles (Macrochelys temminckii) in Oklahoma. She has not forumlated her exact questions yet, but we have had a large number of tissue samples available through Day Ligon (http://biology.missouristate.edu/Ligon.htm), our collaborator on the project.
Jared Wood: Jared (pictured below) is new Ph.D. student who seems to have settled on a project looking at invasive lizards (monitor lizards and tegu lizards) in and around Everglades National Park in Florida. More details will be forthcoming soon.
Victoria Prescott is a Ph.D. student who just started this month. She is still thinking abut a project.
POSTODOC PROJECTS
Dr. Bruna Bezerra is currently working on the behavior, ecology, and genetics of two isolated populations of blond capuchin monkeys, Cebus flavius. The species was thought to be extinct until 2006 and was rediscovered in fragments of Atlantic Rain Forest in the Northeast of Brazil. More about Bruna and her research can be found here. http://www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/person/index.html?personKey=NtWjzJVe2g8JgJKIQiiQlZJyy6zgMZ
Dr. Robert Page joined the lab in June 2011. Robert did his MS and Ph.D. on the behavioral ecology, population genetics, comparative genomics, and developmental biology of salamanders. His knowledge of molecular techniques is awesome and he will be helping to run my lab as well as see if he can teach this old dog some new tricks. Robert comes to me having already published 13 papers in peer-reviewed journals and will be integral to training graduate and undergraduate students in my lab as well as helping to process most DNA samples. Robert is interested in devloping wolf spiders as a focal organism for his future research. You can read more about Robert and his research here: http://sites.google.com/site/robertbpage/
