The Department of Estuarine and Ocean Sciences will be hosting Michael Sheriff as the seminar speaker on Wednesday 1/29 from 12:30-1:30. Sheriff, Associate Professor at UMass Dartmouth in the Biology Department, will be discussing “Coping with a Changing Environment.” This seminar can be attended in person in SMAST East 101-103 or via Zoom! Check out the abstract below:
Abstract:
Anthropogenic disturbances are wide-spread around the globe and impact free-living animals in myriad ways; including direct disturbance, changes to food quality and quantity, invasive species, as well as changes in temperature and climate. As ecologists, we are challenged with the difficult task of predicting how individuals and populations will respond to human-induced changes to local and global ecosystems. Human-induced stressors can impact animals through changes in their physiology, behaviour, and fitness. Here I will discuss two major axes of work that occurs in my laboratory. First, I will examine how environmental stressors impact glucocorticoid levels (stress hormones) in free-living animals. Specifically, I will focus on how altered land use and reduced food quality impacts GC levels in wild impala within the Serengeti Ecosystem, and how changes in winter temperature and snow cover alters GC levels in free-living ruffed grouse. Second, I will examine how an invasive predator is interacting with a local predator within a New England inter-tidal ecosystem and altering prey behaviour and growth in unpredictable ways.
