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Welcome to the Fox Lab at OSU

Our lab focuses on behavioral aspects of evolutionary ecology of natural populations, especially of reptiles and amphibians. Specifically, we are interested in understanding how sexual selection molds contemporary populations and how parental care and social behavior have evolved, especially in lizards. Additionally, we have conducted investigations related to tail autotomy in lizards, freshwater turtle conservation in Oklahoma, temperature-dependent sex determination in collared lizards, and the role of the Bd fungus (chytrid fungus) and ranavirus in amphibian declines in Latin America, especially in Patagonia.

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Our approach to these problems is necessarily integrative and collaborative. We combine concepts and methods from various biological disciplines ranging from ecology, evolution, and animal behavior to physiology, endocrinology, immunology and genetics. Our research is heavily field-based, supplemented with analytical and experimental approaches in the laboratory, and is/has been conducted in Oklahoma and neighboring states, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Madagascar.

OSU Biology

Research

In general, my lab and I advance and utilize a field experimental approach to behavioral and evolutionary ecology, employing mostly lizards as model subjects. We are particularly interested in the development of lizard social organization at both the ontogenetic and evolutionary levels, studying lizards in the United States, Mexico, and Chile. The study of sexual selection is an important aspect of that. Another focus is the behavioral ecology associated with tail autotomy in lizards, exploring the use of the tail in lizards as a status signalling badge. We also conduct research on herp community ecology, especially freshwater turtle communities. A recent, applied, research focus is on the distribution, abundance and habitat affiliations of the Ringed Salamander in Oklahoma--an ecologically cryptic, episodic, fall breeder from the mountainous eastern part of the state. Some of my students and I have been involved in research related to worldwide amphibian declines, especially those related to ranavirus and the chytrid fungus Bd.

Current Research Projects

Publications

Links

Collaborators

Herman Nunez is now retired, but he was the Curator of Vertebrates of the Chilean National Museum of Natural History in Santiago, Chile. He is the world's authority on the herpetofauna of Chile.

Felipe Rodriguez is Professor of Biology at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico in Toluca, Mexico and studies all sorts of aspects of the evolutionary ecology of reptiles.

Troy Baird is a Profesor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Central Oklahoma. He works with the behavioral ecology of collared lizards.

Jerry Husak is an Associate Professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnsota. He is interested in how natural and sexual selection shape physiological and morphological traits, especially performance traits. Jerry was my former PhD student.

Daniel Pincheira-Donoso is Lecturer in the School of Life Sciences at Queen's University in Belfast. Daniel is an evolutionary biologist interested in selection theory, ecology and genetics of adaptations, macroecology, life history evolution, and climate change biology, related especially to lizards.

Day Ligon is Associate Professor of Biology at Missouri State University. He is interested in physiological ecology and conservation of reptiles, with an emphasis on turtles.

Ron Van Den Bussche is a Regents Professor of Integrative Biology at Oklaoma State University. He is a molecular geneticist who addresses phylogenetic, phylogeographic, or population genetic questions in mammals, especially bats.

Matt Lovern is Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University. He is a behavioral endocrinologist who studies maternal effects, focusing on maternal steroid deposition into yolk as a potential means of influencing offspring phenotype, especially in lizards.

Jen Grindstaff is Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University. She is a behavioral ecologist who works in ecological immunology, integrating field and laboratory work to explore how ecological and physiological parameters act and interact to influence parent and offspring phenotypes.

David Leslie, Jr.

Chip (David Leslie, Jr. ) is the Fish and Wildlife Co-op Unit Leader in Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Oklahoma State University. He is involved in a multitude of wildlife research projects, including freshwater turtle conservation and ecology.

Dan Moen is a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University, arriving in the fall of 2015. In his research, he address questions of diversification, phenotypic evolution, and community ecology, using amphibians and reptiles as study organisms. Particularly, he studies whole-animal locomotory performance of world anurans in the context of phylogenetic comparative analyses. OSU is lucky to have him. Dan is fluent in Spanish.

Elisa Cabrera-Guzman is a new Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State University, arriving in the fall of 2015. She studies invasive species, biological interactions, ecology of freshwater environments, community ecology, habitat fragmentation, and conservation biology, mostly in herps. She is Mexican and bilingual in Spanish and English.