Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Parasites represent nearly half of all known species, and can dramatically reduce the health, survival and reproduction of their hosts. Habitat alteration and a warming climate are changing the geographic ranges of many parasites, with the result that parasites are increasingly spreading to infect new host populations. Migratory birds have been especially scrutinized as possible carriers of parasites and spreaders of infectious disease. My research program examines the interactions between birds and their bloodborne parasites, with particular attention to how selection imposed by parasites influences important life-history traits such as juvenile dispersal, mate choice and seasonal migration. Together with fifteen graduate and undergraduate trainees, I will use cutting edge techniques in genetics, immunology, parasitology, and movement ecology to examine how parasites affect the ecology and evolution of their songbird hosts. My trainees and I will expose migratory songbirds to familiar and to unfamiliar parasites, to determine whether resistance develops quickly (within an individual’s lifetime) or more slowly (over evolutionary time). We will sequence genes involved in immune defense to identify specific variants that may help protect against local parasite strains. We will conduct preference tests to test whether birds use odour cues to assess the health status and immune profiles of potential mates, as mammals and fish are known to do. We will test whether other behavioural traits, such as risk-taking or exploratory behaviour, are correlated with migration distance and might thus limit the evolution of this trait. We will compare the diversity of parasites and other microbes acquired by longer- versus shorter-distance migrants, and we will manipulate infection status then track individual movements through an array of hundreds of radiotowers to determine whether parasites alter migratory behaviour. Trainees will acquire expertise in animal tracking, advanced data analysis, next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics, wildlife health, disease ecology, and the use of stable isotopes to assess animal origins. This research will help predict the spread of infectious disease in the face of a changing climate. Such insights will allow Canadians to forecast, plan and avert the potential consequences of emerging infectious disease threats to wildlife populations.