Addis

Research in the Addis lab

Research interests
My research interests are broadly focused on physiological and evolutionary ecology, and specifically on the evolution of mechanisms that control life history strategies. I broadly use reptilians (birds, snakes, and turtles) as my study systems because they exhibit a wide range of life strategies that frequently diverge from those of traditional model organisms, such as rats and mice.

Current projects
Stress response of marmots in urban vs. rural locations. Spokane is famous for its marmots. Marmots usually do not live in urban areas, although the prevalency of them is inreasing. How can some marmots flourish in urban areas, such as Spokane, while others do not? In other species, both baseline and stress induced levels of glucocorticoids vary between urban and rural individuals. This project explores whether such variation also occurs in marmots and whether this variation allows marmots to breed successfully in urban areas.