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Ecological Research and Education Center
Taking data on a marked Northern Cardinal

EREC Research

The Research at EREC

EREC supports a large diversity of research, all loosely focused on semi-natural experimental approaches to understanding how organisms function in a complex world. Our facilities allow researchers to control some variables but let others be as natural as possible so has to better assess the importance of focal experimental factors in complex environments. The research enterprise at EREC has attracted considerable federal funding (page), produced 43 scientific publications (page) to date, and trained over 24 graduate PhD and MS students and ~50 undergraduates. Most research is by members of UK's Department of Biology, but we also have hosted projects from other UK departments and from Transylvania University and the University of Virginia. 

Past Projects: Extramural Funding

Extra-mural grants are a mainstay of research activity at a major University, and EREC serves to support such grant activity. Since its inception, the station has attracted nearly 3 million in grant dollars. Listed below are the projects receiving funding:

  1.  National Science Foundation – “Behavioral and Ecological Factors Influencing the Mating Dynamics of a Semi-Aquatic Insect”, 239,511, 15 July 1993-14 July 1996.
  2. National Science Foundation – “Ecological Factors and Behavioral Mechanisms Underlying Selection”, $177,365, 1 April 1996 – 31 March 1999.
  3. National Science Foundation, “Condition-Dependent Reproductive Strategies In A Fish With Male Parental Care”, $110,000, 1998-2001.
  4. National Institute of Mental Health, “Condition-Dependent Integration of Multisensory Cues”, $116,000, 1998-2000.
  5. National Science Foundation - “Factors influencing conditional expression of female mate preferences.” $250,000, 1 March 1999 – 29 Feb 2004.
  6. National Science Foundation – “Behavioral Carryovers, Tradeoffs and Performance Correlations across Situations”, $277,653, 15 July 2000-14 July 2003.
  7. National Science Foundation - Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: “Testing alternative hypotheses concerning why parental care improves with age,” $10,000, 15 June 2000 - 31 May, 2002.
  8. National Science Foundation - Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (C. Johnson, “Pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism: the ecology of an extreme sexual conflict,” $9,612, 1 April 2002-31 March 2004.
  9. National Science Foundation - Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: “Key Traits Underlying Invasion Success: A Comparison of Gambusia Species”, $9,945, 1 May 2002-30 April 2004)
  10. National Science Foundation – Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Examining the effects of large scale migration on local population and community dynamics in larval odonates", $3709, 6/01/02-5/31/03.
  11. National Science Foundation (IOB-0542097) – “Development of Signaler and Receiver Phenotypes”, $284,901. Aug 15, 2006-July 31-2009.
  12. National Science Foundation REU Site (DBI-1062890): “Suburban Ecology and Invasive Species” $300,000, 1 Oct 2011-30 Sept 2014.
  13. National Science Foundation (IOS1257718): “Parental care and the integration of personality and plasticity at multiple levels of phenotypic variance” $670,000, 1 August 2013-30 July 2018.
  14. National Science Foundation: “REU Supplement: Plasticity in parental behavior in response to cues of changing nestling demand.” PI, $7140, 8/1/14-7/31/17.
  15. National Science Foundation: “Field station planning: Ecological Research and Education Center, University of Kentucky”. , $25,000, 8/1/14-12/31/16.
  16. National Science Foundation: “Dissertation Research: Cooperation and the Covariance between Genetic Monogamy and Limited Dispersal.”, $19,273, 5/1/16-4/30/18.
  17. National Science Foundation: “Collaborative Research: Parental effects, telomere dynamics, and the cross-generational consequences of stressors” co-PI, $253,746, 1 April 2017- 31 March 2022.

Past Projects: Published papers

Publishing science in the formal scientific literature is also a major goal of both student and faculty-driven research. Below is a list of papers produced from research done at the EREC station. Undergraduates are indicated as a * and graduate students as a +. 

  1. +Griffith, Jr C. 1998. The response of Viola blanda Willd. (Violacaea) to  phosphorus fertilization and shading. Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 125:194-198.
  2. *Moses JL, Sih A 1998. Effects of predation risk and food availability on the activity, habitat use, feeding behavior and mating behavior of a pond water strider, Gerris marginatus (Hemiptera). Ethology 104 (8): 661-669.
  3. Krupa JJ, Sih A 1999. Comparison of antipredator responses of two related water striders to a common predator. Ethology 105: 1019-1033.
  4. +Hopper, K.R. 2001.  Flexible antipredator behavior in a dragonfly species that coexists with different predator types.  Oikos 93: 470-476.
  5. Sih A, +Lauer M, Krupa JJ 2002. Path analysis and the relative importance of male-female conflict, female choice and male-male competition in water striders. Animal Behaviour 63: 1079-1089.
  6. Sih A, Kats LB, Maurer EF 2003. Behavioural correlations across situations and the evolution of antipredator behaviour in a sunfish-salamander system. Animal Behaviour 65: 29-44.
  7. +Crumrine PW, Crowley PH (2003) Partitioning components of risk reduction in a dragonfly-fish intraguild predation system. Ecology 84, No. 6 pp. 1588–1597.
  8. +Hupton G., S. Portocarrero, M. Newman, and D. F. Westneat. 2003.  Bacteria in the reproductive tract of red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus). The Condor 105: 453-464.
  9. Donohue K, Dorn L, +Griffith C, Kim E, Aguilera A, Polisetty CR, Schmitt J. 2005. Environmental and genetic influences on the germination of Arabidopsis thaliana in the field. Evolution 59:740-757.
  10. +Crumrine PW 2005. Size structure and substitutability in an odonate intraguild predation system. Oecologia 145:132-139.
  11. Donohue K, Dorn L, Griffith C, Kim E, Aguilera A, Polisetty CR, Schmitt J. 2005. The evolutionary ecology of seed germination of Arabidopsis thaliana: Variable natural selection on germination timing. Evolution 59:758-770.
  12. Donohue K, Dorn L, +Griffith C, Kim E, Aguilera A, Polisetty CR, Schmitt J. 2005. Niche construction through germination cueing: Life history responses to timing of germination in Arabidopsis thaliana. Evolution 59:771-785.
  13. +Griffith, C., E-S Kim, K. Donohue.  2004. Life-history variation and adaptation in the historically mobile plant, Arabidopsis thaliana (Brassicaceae), in North America.  American Journal of Botany 91:837-849.
  14. +Garcia TS, Stacy J, Sih A 2004 Larval salamander response to uv radiation and predation risk: Color change and microhabitat use. Ecological Applications 14 (4): 1055-1064.
  15. +Griffith, C, Kim E, Donohue K. 2004. Life-history variation and adaptation in the historically mobile plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Brassicaceae) in North America. American Journal of Botany 91:837-849.
  16. +Johnson JC, Sih A 2005. Precopulatory sexual cannibalism in fishing spiders (Dolomedes triton): a role for behavioral syndromes. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 58 (4): 390-396.
  17. Poston, J. P., D. Hasselquist, I. R. K. Stewart, and D. F. Westneat. 2005. Dietary amino acids influence plumage traits and immune response of male house sparrows (Passer domesticus), but not as expected. Animal Behaviour 70: 1171-1181.
  18. +Rehage JS, *Barnett BK, Sih A 2005. Foraging behaviour and invasiveness: do invasive Gambusia exhibit higher feeding rates and broader diets than their noninvasive relatives? Ecology of Freshwater Fish 14 (4): 352-360
  19. +Rehage JS, *Barnett BK, Sih A 2005. Behavioral responses to a novel predator and competitor of invasive mosquitofish and their non-invasive relatives (Gambusia sp.). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 57 (3): 256-266.
  20. Rohr JR, +Crumrine PW (2005) Effects of an herbicide and an insecticide on pond community structure and processes. Ecological Applications 15: 1135–1147.
  21. Cassone, VM, Paulose, JK, Whitfield-Rucker, MG & Peters, JL, 2009. Time’s arrow flies like a bird: two paradoxes in avian circadian biology. General Comparative Endocrinology 163:109-116.
  22. +Smith, CC & Sargent, RC, 2006. Female fitness declines with increasing female density but not male harassment in the western mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis. Animal Behaviour 71:401-407.
  23. +Smith, CC, 2007. Independent effects of male and female density on sexual harassment, female fitness, and male competition for mates in the western mosquitofish. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 61:1349-1358.
  24. +Ensminger, AL, DF Westneat. 2012. Individual and sex differences in habituation and neophobia in house sparrows (Passer domesticus). Ethology 118:1085-1095.
  25. +Moldoff, D. E., & Westneat, D. F. (2017). Foraging sparrows exhibit individual differences but not a syndrome when responding to multiple kinds of novelty. Behavioral Ecology, 28(3), 732-743.
  26. Stewart, IRK and Westneat DF. 2010. Dietary calcium negatively affects the size of a status signal in juvenile male house sparrows (Passer domesticus). The Auk 127:549-557.
  27. Stewart, I.R. K. and D. F. Westneat. 2011. Production of melanin-based plumage traits in male House Sparrows: no effect of dietary copper. International Studies of Sparrows 35: 4-15.
  28. +Sesterhenn, TM. 2011. Effects of predators and injury over different time scales in the damselfly Ischnura posita (Odonata: Coenagrionidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 104:358-363.
  29. Stewart, I. R. K. and D. F. Westneat. 2013. Dietary calcium, but not glutathione, affects bib size in juvenile male House Sparrows. The Condor 115: 921-930.
  30. +Sesterhenn, TM, EE Reardon, LJ Chapman. 2013. Hypoxia and lost gills: respiratory ecology of a temperate larval damselfly. Journal of Insect Physiology 59:19-25.
  31. Cassone, VM. 2014. Avian circadian organization: a chorus of clocks. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology 35: 76-88.
  32. Cassone VM. 2014. Avian circadian organization. In: Mechanisms of Circadian Systems in Animals and their Clinical Significance Raul Aguilar-Roblero, Mauricio Diaz-Munoz, Maria Fanjul-Moles (eds) Springer, pp 69-96.
  33. Cassone VM, Kumar V. 2014. Circadian rhythms. In: Sturkie’s Avian Physiology, Colin Scanes (ed.) Academic Press. Chapter 34, pp 811-828.
  34. Wang G, +Harpole CE, Paulose JK, Cassone VM. 2014. The role of the pineal gland in the photoperiodic control of bird song frequency and repertoire in the house sparrow, Passer domesticus.  Hormones and Behavior 65: 372-379.
  35. Cassone VM, Yoshimura T. 2014. Circannual rhythms and photoperiodism. In: Sturkie’s Avian Physiology, Colin Scanes (ed.) Academic Press, Chapter 35, pp 829-845.
  36. Li Y., Cassone VM. 2015. ­­­Clock-controlled regulation of the acute effects of norepinephrine in chick pineal melatonin rhythms.  Journal of Biological Rhythms 30: 519-532.
  37. Li, Y, Cassone, VM. 2015. A simple, specific high-throughput enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for quantitative determination of melatonin in cell culture medium. International Immunopharmacology 28: 230-234.
  38. Sánchez-Tójar A., Nakagawa S., Sánchez-Fortún, M., Martin D. A., Ramani, S., Girndt A., Bókony, V., Liker, A., Westneat, D. F., Burke, T., and J. Schroeder. 2018. Meta-analysis challenges a textbook example of status signaling and demonstrates publication bias. eLife.
  39. Moore AF, Cassone VM, Alloway KD, Bartell PA. The premammillary nucleus of the hypothalamus is not necessary for photoperiodic timekeeping in female turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). PLoS One. 2018 Feb 20;13(2):e0190274. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190274. PMID: 29462137; PMCID: PMC5819771.
  40. +Harpole CE, Miles MD, Cassone VM. Melatonin duration gates photoperiodic vocal state change in a songbird. J Pineal Res. 2020 Mar;68(2):e12625. doi: 10.1111/jpi.12625. Epub 2019 Dec 18. PMID: 31749228.
  41. Kernbach ME, Cassone VM, Unnasch TR, and Martin LB. (2020) Spectral characteristics of light pollution have distinct effects on melatonin and songbird responses to West Nile virus. Condor 122: 1- 13 DOI: 10.1093/condor/duaa018
  42. +Harpole CE, Cassone VM. Context and novelty increase strength of auditory cues as a weak circadian zeitgeber in songbirds. Chronobiol Int. 2021 Jul;38(7):1042-1051. doi: 10.1080/07420528.2021.1903484. Epub 2021 Apr 7. PMID: 33823734.
  43. +Cones, A. G. and D. F. Westneat. (2023) Multilevel variation in embryonic reaction norms and the role of the environment. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology: Ecological and Evolutionary Approaches 96: 260-271. doi.org/10.1086/725236.
  44. +McLaughlin, A. L. and D. F. Westneat. (2023) House sparrows exhibit individual differences in generalization when confronted with different novel stimuli. Ethology. http://doi.org/10.1111/eth.13374.
  45. +Cones, A. G. and D. F. Westneat (2024). Variation in the thermal plasticity of avian embryos is produced by the developmental environment, not genes. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.1892.
  46. +Cones*, A. G., E. R. Schneider and D. F. Westneat (2024). The incubation environment does not explain significant variation in heart rate plasticity among avian embryos.  Journal of Experimental Biology 227, jeb247120.
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