Education
Trent University B.Sc. Honours Biology and Hispanic Studies (2007)
Honours Thesis (supervised by Dr. Michael Berrill): An assessment of the recovery of Diadema antillarum on Eleuthera Island, the Bahamas, and the value of transplant experiments as a method for enchancing their recovery.
M.Sc. Research
My research aims to determine how an individual’s response to an acute stressor is correlated with life history parameters and fitness. Between individuals, variation in stress responsiveness can vary by more than two orders of magnitude when exposed to identical stressors. Through the use of standardized stressors and by measuring cortisol, the primary stress hormone in fish, I will assess the energetic and ecological consequences of these pronounced inter-individual differences and determine if this variation is maintained within an individual regardless of the nature of the stressor. My interests lie in discovering how the stress response of an individual defines specific behavioral traits (activity levels, aggression) and how these individual characteristics affect overall fitness, as measured by survival and spawning success. Using largemouth bass and Fraser River pink salmon as model species for this research, I will work from Queen’s University Biological Station in eastern Ontario and the Weaver Creek spawning channel in the Lower Fraser valley, British Columbia. This research contributes to the scientific community by filling that knowledge gap between variation in stress responsiveness and fitness. From an applied perspective, studies focused on the individual level of physiological variation consider the full scope of how a population will respond to environmental change and provide an integrated and thorough approach of understanding how a species will cope with stress in the wild.
Additional Previous Research
A strong interest in environmental science and travel has given me a diverse background in ecology and conservation, working with several different taxa on multiple national and international projects. My introduction to fisheries work began at Mote Marine (Sarasota, Florida) where I worked on a project studying the efficacy of marine stock enhancement as a supplementary management tool. My honours thesis work consisted of determining the stage of recovery of different populations of a keystone species, the sea urchin Diadema antillarum, and looked into several methods of enhancing their recovery. I have also conducted extensive ornithological field work, volunteering at numerous bird banding stations throughout Ontario, and spending two seasons involved in a long-term monitoring study on the reproductive success of Arctic shorebirds (Canadian Wildlife Service, Nunavut). During my undergraduate education, I assisted on a project assessing the effects of resort development on habitat selection by neotropical warblers (Centro de Investigaciones de Ecosistemas Costeros, Cuba).
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