Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by parasitic trematodes in the genus Schistosoma. 200 million people are infected with schistosomes. Schistosomiasis causes acute and chronic disease, and may lead to death in chronic infections. Schistosomes have a complex life cycle that requires passage through a snail intermediate host. Understanding...
Transgenerational immune priming occurs when an adult is exposed to a parasite or other pathogen and then transmits information to its offspring through protective phenotypes to cope with the same pathogen (Moret, 2006). There has been evidence for transgenerational immune priming in various invertebrates (Tidbury et al. 2011). Here we...
Releasing hatchery reared salmon and steelhead to supplement threatened and endangered populations is a widely used conservation tool. One issue with this strategy is hatchery fish have lower reproductive fitness than wild fish when spawning in the wild. One of the drivers of fitness loss in steelhead is adaptation to...
Schistosomiasis afflicts 200 million people and is responsible for 200,000 deaths per year. The infection is caused by a digenean trematode in the genus Schistosoma. The parasite must cycle through both a vertebrate (human) and invertebrate (snail) host to complete the life cycle. My dissertation focuses on the genetic mechanisms...
This dissertation focuses on the evolutionary forces of genetic drift and gene flow in frog populations. The balance of these two forces and the force of mutation largely determine the amount of neutral genetic variation within populations as well as the degree of genetic similarity among populations. The stochastic evolutionary...
Sea otters fulfill a keystone role in several Northeastern Pacific nearshore ecosystems. However, their influence has been absent in Oregon coastal waters since their extirpation in the 19th and early 20th century. Interest has been growing for a translocation attempt to reintroduce sea otters to Oregon from one or more...