I am currently an NSF PRFB Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Chris Schell's Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. I am also a research affiliate in the Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit, directed by Dr. Ben Sacks, at the University of California, Davis. I currently study functional links among the diet, gut microbiome, infection status, and behavior of raccoons in the San Francisco Bay Area. I received my PhD in Ecology from UC Davis where my dissertation research explored the impacts of urbanization on wildlife with a population of urban coyotes present in San Francisco.
CONTEXT
In recent decades, humans and animals have increasingly co-occurred in high densities in urban areas. Although declines in biodiversity are associated with urbanization, numerous species have adjusted to and thrive in cities. The success of urban animals is largely attributed to the expansion of their diet to include human-provided food, resulting in frequent conflicts with people. These conflicts have wide-ranging health, financial, and ecosystem-level consequences, which necessitate a mechanistic understanding of how animals adapt to human resources for better mitigation strategies. My work investigates how heterogeneity within and across cities shapes variation in the behavior, diet, physiology, and health of urban wildlife. I use urban carnivores as a model to assess how external conditions and internal biological processes interact to shape animal phenotypes in urban environments. This research sits at the intersection of urban ecology, organismal biology, and animal behavior, and seeks to advance both ecological understanding and practical strategies for fostering human-wildlife coexistence in shared landscapes.
methods
DNA METABARCODINGI use genetic analysis of fecal DNA to examine how carnivore diets and gut microbiomes are impacted by human presence and human footprint. I investigate how diet and microbial composition vary based on the neighborhoods animals reside in, demonstrating how within-city differences in the built environment shape variation among individual animals.
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stable isotopesI use whiskers and hair from animals that die in the city, mostly from vehicle strikes, to quantify how much human food and protein individuals assimilate. With stable isotope analysis, I investigate the extent of individual dietary specialization in urban carnivores. I also use these tissues to examine mercury assimilation across urban landscapes, exploring how contaminant exposure varies among individuals.
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PHYSIOLOGYI measure cortisol and thyroid hormones in fecal and hair samples to explore how endocrine function is impacted by dietary variation, environmental conditions, and human activity. In collaboration with the One Health Institute at UC Davis, I also investigate how wildlife health varies as a function of environment and internal conditions.
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COLLABORATORS
