Animal Ecophysiology

Lab Updates

Field work. May-2023. Karen Caceres (MS student), Patty Schenke, (MS student), and Michael Griego (Post-Doc) are back out in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico, looking for collared lizards (Crotaphytus collaris).

Award. April-2024. John (PI) received the Distinguished Early Career Research Award from the Biological Sciences Department.

Student paper. March-2024. A paper describing methods for high-precision oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope analysis just came out, led by Zach Steele (PhD Candidate) with co-authors Karen Caceres (MS student), Michael Griego (Post-Doc), John (PI), and others.

Award. December-2023. John (PI) was the finalist among junior faculty at ODU for the 'Rising Star, Outstanding Faculty Award', given by the State Council for Higher Ed. in Virginia.

Welcome! November-2023. Patty Schenke has been accepted into the MS program, and will be studying water balance in polar bears. Excited to have her join the lab!

Podcast interview! October-2023. Karen Caceres (MS student) has a fun interview with a host from the American Institute for Biological Sciences. Click here and jump to the 11:15 mark.

Lab visit. September-2023. Yaduraj Khadpekar (PhD; Veterinary Degree; currently professional wildlife vet at a center in western India) visited to work on a collaborative dataset of reproductive hormones in sloth bears, and met with grad and undergrad students.

Field work. August-2023. Karen Caceres (MS student) and Michael Griego (Post-Doc) are out in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico, looking for collared lizards (Crotaphytus collaris).

Research presentation! July-2023. Karen Caceres (MS student) presented her study 'Do Florida cottonmouth snakes need freshwater?' at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (Norfolk, Virginia).

Grad student award! June-2023. Congratulations to Zach Steele (PhD Candidate).  He has been awarded the Harold G. Marshall and Vivian J. Marshall Endowed Scholarship in Biology, a competitive award that includes funding ($5,924).

New arrivals! Summer 2023. John (PI) welcomed two babies to his family!

Field work. May-2023. Zack David (PhD student) was out working with wild Marsh rice rats (Oryzomys palustris) at local sites in Virginia. 

Grad students featured. Feb-2023. Recent field work by Zach Steele (PhD Candidate) and Karen Caceres (MSc student) received a great writeup; read all about it here.

Post-doc lands permanent position! Dec-2022. Big congratulations to Dr. Antonella Panebianco; in 2023 she will become an Assistant Researcher at the federal agency CONICET in Argentina. 

Field work. Nov-2022. Zack David  (PhD student) headed to Cambodia for a field season of collecting data on Asiatic black bears and on sun bears at a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center.

Research presentations! Nov-2022. Karen Caceres (MS student) presented her study 'Do Florida cottonmouth snakes need freshwater?' at the Tidewater Student Research Poster Session (Christopher Newport University, Virginia), and Zack David  (PhD student) gave the talk 'Aseasonal reproduction in sun bears' in our weekly departmental seminar series here at ODU.

Field work. Nov-2022. John (PI) spent a week on the tundra in western Hudson Bay, Canada, with Polar Bears International. It was a great stretch of outreach, education, and research and conservation planning.

Field work. Oct-2022. Michael Griego (Post-doc) started sampling migratory passerine birds as they make their way through New Mexico.

Field work. Aug-2022. Zach Steele (PhD student) and Karen Caceres (MS student) joined collaborators in New Mexico to sample kangaroo rats, rattlesnakes, and other fauna. This work is centered in the biodiverse region of overlap between the Chihuahuan Desert, Rocky Mountains, and central grasslands of the US southwest.

Lab visit. Jul-2022. Antonella Panebianco (Post-doc) arrived to the ODU campus for a several-month visit. We're excited to have her here!

Polar Bears International. Jun-2022. John (PI) added a new role as Chief Research Scientist at PBI, where he will participate in science communication and research.

Grad student award! May-2022. Congratulations to Zack David (PhD student).  He won the 2022-2023 Harold G. Marshall & Vivian J. Marshall Scholarship in Biology, a competitive award that includes funding ($5,557).

Post-doc funded! Mar-2022. Congratulations to Michael Griego. His grant proposal for a research project studying nutritional ecology and water balance in migratory songbirds was funded ($130,000) for two years by the National Science Foundation (PRFB). Michael is currently finishing his PhD at the University of Massachusetts and will join us in autumn.

Grad student funded! Jan-2022. Congratulations to Zach Steele (PhD student); his grant proposal for a research project studying water balance in introduced Oryx (Oryx gazella) in New Mexico was funded ($2,600) by T & E, Inc.

Back in the field. Dec-2021. After a long wait, covid conditions finally permitted PhD student Zack David to return to his field site at a wildlife center in Cambodia, where he resumed data collection on Asiatic black bears and on sun bears.

Grad student award! Oct-2021.  Congratulations to Zack David (PhD student) for winning Best Student Presentation at the annual meeting of the International Bear Association. Zack presented on his ongoing work investigating metabolic rates in Asiatic black bears and sun bears.

A technological leap, via water balance in songbirds. Sep-2021.  John (PI) co-authored a new study investigating how changes in metabolic rate affect water balance in passerines. This study represents the next step forward in our development of the triple oxygen isotope system as an ecophysiological tool.

Polar bears: physiology review. July-2021. A book summarizing the state of polar bear knowledge was just published, with a chapter on physiology from John (PI). 

Penguins, redux. June-2021. Bortoluzzi et al. wrote an excellent commentary on our recent study of capital reproduction in emperor penguins and other advances in stable isotope applications to biology.

Welcome! June-2021. Karen Caceres has been accepted into the MS program and will start in August. She recently finished her BS in Biological Sciences here at ODU, and she will be studying water and energy balance in ectotherms. We're excited for her to join the lab!

Grad student funded! May-2021. Congratulations to Zach Steele (PhD student); his proposals for a summer research project ($3,000; one summer) and for an academic-year project ($6,000; renewable) were funded by Old Dominion University and the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, respectively.

Sloth bears and mating behavior. March-2021. John (PI) co-authored a new paper in the journal Ursus describing scent-marking by sloth bears. This ursid (not related to sloths, and in fact, with personalities that are generally the opposite of 'sloth-like'; the name derives from their long, curved claws) is one of the least-studied bear species, and collaborator Dr. Yaduraj Khadpekar recently completed his dissertation studying a large captive population in their natural range in north-central India.

Emperor penguins and reproduction. December-2020. John (PI) led a recent paper describing a new method to quantify capital versus income breeding, using emperor penguins from Adélie Land as a model species. The paper just came out in the Journal of Animal Ecology; click for a plain-language summary.

GRE no longer required. October-2020. Faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences at ODU voted to drop the GRE requirement when applying for graduate study (note that students applying for the Biomedical Program go through a different administrative process).

Welcome! August-2020. Zach Steele has arrived to begin his PhD. He completed his MSc in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida, and he'll be researching novel methods to assess metabolism and water balance in free-ranging animals. Excited to have him here!

Elephant seals and foraging. August-2020. It is difficult to track the diet and habitat use of free-ranging animals, especially marine mammals. One solution is to use stable isotope analysis on tissue collected from juvenile animals, then to infer the diet and habitat use of the mother. However, the juvenile animal represents a "filter" that can alter the stable isotope values. Lübcker et al. 2020 document the effects of this filter in southern elephants seals; click here to see the paper.

Watch! July-2020. We made a great, short video of the February 2020 field work in the Gulf of Mexico. Click here to watch.

Elephant seals and fasting. April-2020. Southern elephant seals, distributed across the Southern Ocean, go through fasting periods during their annual cycle. John (PI) collaborated on a project that teased apart the confounding ecological and physiological influences on stable isotope values of elephant seal whiskers, to better understand the nitrogen balance of this wide-ranging consumer.

Pandemic. March-2020. Similar to regions around the world, the US is being hit hard by the covid19 pandemic. ODU has extended spring break by one week and switched all teaching to online-only for the remainder of the spring semester. Research activities are temporarily suspended, with exceptions for time-sensitive projects. Admission and registration for autumn 2020 are proceeding, although paperwork delays can be expected.

Stay safe and follow public health guidelines! Public cooperation is essential.

In the field! Feb-2020. John (PI) and Melanny (undergraduate) are spending 10 days on the RV Atlantis in the Gulf of Mexico, collecting samples of invertebrates, sediment, and wood from the ocean floor as part of a collaborative project led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON). The deep-sea operations are conducted via the submersible Alvin.

Grad student funded! Feb-2020. Congratulations to Zack David (MSc student); his proposal for an Experience and Exchange Grant to the International Bear Association was just funded ($1,730 over 1 year). He will use this support for collaborative research on sloth bear metabolism at a field site in India.

PI funded! Jan-2020. John (lab PI) is the lead of a grant proposal just funded by the National Science Foundation (Integrative and Organismal Systems) for $870,362 over 3 years. Grant co-investigators include Seth Newsome and Zach Sharp (University of New Mexico) and Alex Gerson (University of Massachusetts). The proposal is entitled "Collaborative Research: Triple oxygen isotopes as a new method to study water inputs and metabolism in wild animals."

PI funded! Jan-2020. John (lab PI) is a co-investigator on a grant proposal just funded by the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development of Chile for $330,000 over 5 years. The international team includes P. Sabat, R. Nesolo, K. Maldonado, S. Newsome, J. Whiteman, and J.C. Sanchez-Hernandez. The proposal is entitled "The cost of hydration: physiological and environmental determinants of producing metabolic water in passerines along an aridity gradient in a coastal desert.”

In the field! Dec-2019. John (lab PI) and Zack (MSc) head to Cambodia for metabolic measurements of sun bears and Asiatic black bears with our collaborators at the Cambodian Bear Sanctuary, supported by Free the Bears, within the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. Meanwhile, Antonella (Post-doc) has been continuing her collaborative work on sampling nutritional and energetic variables in wild guanacos and mountain lions in Argentina.

Join us! Nov-2019. Recruiting for a PhD student to study metabolic rates, energy balance, and water balance. Focus on small mammals as a model organism, with support to develop work on additional taxa and/or questions. See "Opportunities" for more information.

To read. Sep-2019. Last spring, the author and science communicator Eden Robins joined the research cruise in the Gulf of Mexico for the deep sea wood fall project. Her moving and insightful perspective on field work can be read here.

Welcome! Aug-2019. Zack David has arrived to begin his MSc, studying the metabolism of bears in southeast Asia. His background includes a BS in Biology and field experience with a variety of wildlife species. Exciting to have him get started!

Published. July-2019. A novel stable isotope measurement can be used to understand water intake and metabolism of free-ranging animals, based on just a single sample. Citation: Whiteman JP, Sharp ZD, Gerson AR, Newsome SD. 2019. Relating Δ17O values of animal body water to exogenous water inputs and metabolism. BioScience [advance article].

Undergraduate funded! May-2019. Congratulations to Melanny Leandado, ODU undergraduate. Her proposal for an ODU research fellowship was funded ($3,000 USD). She will spend the summer studying the influence of diet on stable isotope composition and turnover in Atlantic stingrays, with Dr. Whiteman and Dr. Bartol (also in ODU Biological Sciences).

Published. Feb-2019. The rate at which fatty acids are replaced in animal tissue depends on the identity and location of the fatty acid. Surprisingly, fatty acids that provide structure in cellular membranes can turn over more quickly than fatty acids that are burned for energy. Citation:

Carter WA, Whiteman JP, Cooper-Mullin C, Newsome SD, McWilliams SR. 2019. Dynamics of individual fatty acids in muscle fat stores and membranes of a songbird and its functional and ecological importance. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 92:239-251.

Published. Jan-2019. Polar bears exhibit increased immune system activity when they spend time on shore instead of the on the sea ice, possibly because of exposure to pathogens that they usually do not encounter. Citation:

Whiteman JP, Harlow HJ, Durner GM, Regehr EV, Amstrup SC, Ben-David M. 2019. Heightened immune system function in polar bears using terrestrial habitats. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 92:1-11.

Published. Jan-2019. An introduction and review of the technique of compound-specific stable isotope analyses. The paper is open access! 

Whiteman JP, Elliott Smith EA, Besser AC, Newsome SD. 2019. A guide to using compound-specific stable isotope analysis to study the fates of molecules in organisms and ecosystems. Diversity 11:8.

Here we go! Lab established in January 2019.