Statement of Philosophy

MOVIE of Andy's snake skills (1.4MB)

Professor, Department of Zoology
&
Director, Environmental Sciences Graduate Program

Ph.D., Univ. California at Santa Barbara

My research and teaching reflect my interests in Ecology, Conservation Biology, Behavior and Environmental Science.

Teaching:

I have taught a wide variety of courses at OSU. My current teaching includes courses in Animal Behavior (Z 350/ BI 350), taught from physiological, sociobiological and evolutionary perspectives, two graduate courses in Environmental Science (ENSC 515 & 520) where current issues in Environmental Science are critically examined and a portion of General Biology (BI 211) concerning animal diversity.

Professional Activities:

I am on the editorial board for Conservation Biology and I serve as Assigning Editor for that journal. I am on the Board of Directors for the Amphibian Conservation Alliance (Washington, DC).  I am a member of the Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and Co-Chair of its Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force (DAPTF) Pacific Northwest Section.  I am a science advisor to Earth and Sky Radio. I am also a member of numerous professional societies including the Ecological Society of America, The Society for Conservation Biology and the Animal Behavior Society. I am an AAAS Fellow, a Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and a Fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program of the Ecological Society of America.

Amphibian Population Declines:

For the past several years we have been involved in assessing the significance of declining amphibian populations.  We have investigated this problem from several angles.  We are monitoring populations on a long-term basis. We are investigating specific causes for the declines and we are synthesizing data from various projects.  Specifically, we have looked at introduced exotic species and their effects on amphibians, the spread of diseases, the role of environmental contamination and the effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation.  We are also concerned with how various agents may interact with one another to affect amphibian populations.

WE DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ONE SINGLE CAUSE FOR AMPHIBIAN POPULATION DECLINES.  In fact, it is obvious that there are many factors that contribute to amphibian population declines.  This depends upon the species, the region and the environmental conditions, among other things.  One factor that we have been looking into in some detail is UV-B radiation. We believe that we have contributed significantly to our understanding of how UV-B affects amphibians in nature. We have shown that 1) ambient UV-B radiation reduces the hatching success of amphibian eggs in nature and 2) that there are major interspecific differences in resistance to UV-B as determined by DNA repair analysis and hatching success under controlled UV regimes in field experiments.  UV-B radiation also causes numerous sublethal effects such as body malformations, eye problems and changes in behavior. We have documented the spread of a pathogenic fungus that acts synergistically with UV radiation to enhance embryo mortality.  Obviously, UV radiation is not the universal reason for amphibian population declines. However, the implications of our results are broad and may be relevant to other organisms, including plants, other wildlife and humans.  Click here for a recent overall review of the effects of UV-B on aquatic organisms.

Host-Pathogen Biology:

Host-pathogen systems are ideal for answering many key questions in ecology and evolutionary biology and I have conducted several research projects in this area.  Host-pathogen systems have been part of my research program since I was a graduate student, and they are an important study area to me and my students today.  Papers I wrote in the 1980s with Armand Kuris (UCSB) represent some of my early conceptual/theoretical work on host-parasite and species diversity relationships.  I have also conducted more empirical studies on host-pathogen systems.  Several of my doctoral students have worked on host-pathogen relationships from ecological perspectives.  These students have investigated the effects of parasites on host behavior, how parasites regulate populations of small mammals, and the effects of pathogens on amphibian populations. As part of this research, we have been investigating the role of flatworms in causing amphibian limb deformities.   Recent papers co-authored with Pieter Johnson (University of Colorado) reflect our views on the role of parasites in causing amphibian deformities. We have done a great deal of work on the pathogenic oomycete, Saprolegnia. Several of my graduate students have conducted portions of their thesis research on this pathogen.

We are heavily involved in studying the effects of the newly emerging infectious fungus, Batrachochytrium, on amphibians. Along with colleagues from several universities, we have been studying the effects of this fungus on larval and newly metamorphosed amphibians of various species. We are also investigating how this fungus may interact with other environmental variables such as UV-B radiation, contaminants and other environmental agents.

Behavior:

For a number of years, I have investigated the evolution of social behavior, with some emphasis on studying kin recognition.  My laboratory has conducted research on all aspects of kin recognition from its ontogeny and sensory basis to its adaptive significance. We have used anuran amphibians as our model system in this research because of the ease in which they can be manipulated experimentally in the laboratory and the field and because their life histories suggested the possibility that the larvae of many species may form kin groups in nature.

We have also investigated various aspects of amphibian mating behavior and chemical ecology. We are also interested in how behavior relates to Conservation Biology and Disease Ecology. These areas of behavior are of prime interest to members of my laboratory.