Our lab is involved in the rapidly emerging research field of avian gut microbiomes. An animal's gut microbiome, which is the community of bacteria living in its digestive tract, has a web of impacts on the body that it lives in, including cognitive effects, stress responsiveness, and immunocompetence.

 

Unfortunately, most of what we know about animal microbiomes comes from rodent research, and very little is known about those of other animals, such as birds. Our lab is expanding what is known about avian microbiomes in both the lab and field, and also testing relationships between gut microbiome health and the health of the bird it resides in.

 

Specifically, drawing upon the lab's strong experience in animal cognition, we are testing the relationship between gut microbiome characteristics and interindividual variance in cognitive performance. We are also testing for links between the gut microbiome and stress responsiveness, exploring ways to manipulate these two variables to affect one another, and testing if changes in each affect cognition, behavior, and sexual signaling. Ultimately this work will lead to a better understanding of the determinants of animal health and aid in developing ways to reduce cognitive deficits and stress in injured animals and to index animal population health.