Ecotoxicology and disease ecology
Toxicity of environmental pollutants to aquatic organisms
Environmental pollutants pose a significant risk to aquatic ecosystems. I use traditional toxicological approaches, such as LC50 and time-to-death assays (pictured to the right), to determine the direct, toxic effects of pollutants such as pesticides and road salts to aquatic organisms. LC50 assays allow for an understanding of species-level tolerances to pollutants, as well as population-level differences.
Exposure to environmental pollutants and parasite risk in amphibians
While LC50 and time-to-death assays are great tools for understanding the base-line toxicity of pollutants to aquatic organisms, they only give us a snap-shot of the effects that they may have on aquatic communities. As pollutants commonly occur at low concentrations in the environment, we must also consider how sub-lethal exposure to pollutants may affect aquatic systems. My work predominantly focuses on the affects that sub-lethal exposure to road salt - a ubiquitous contaminant within the norther latitudes of North America - has on parasite susceptibility in amphibian hosts and how other members of the aquatic community (i.e. predators and multiple species of hosts) can modify these effects.
