Joanna E Lambert, Adjunct Associate Professor
Research Interests:
Tropical biology, community ecology, nutritional biology, ecophysiology, animal phenotypic adaptive plasticity, evolution of feeding biology, conservation of biodiversity, Old World monkeys & apes, Africa
Research Summary:
I am currently a tenured Associate Professor of Anthropology and Zoology and an Associate of the Program in Conservation Biology at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. During 2007 - 2008 I will serve as the Director of the National Science Foundation's Physical Anthropology Program.
I am a field-based scientist, and have worked at my primary field site, Kibale National Park, Uganda, since 1991. Of Kibale’s many vertebrate species, there I have studied one ape species (Pan troglodytes), two colobine monkeys (Colobus guereza, Procolobus badius), and three cercopithecine monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius, C. mitis, and Lophocebus albigena), as well as a diversity of avian frugivores (e.g., Sturnidae, Bucerotidae, Columbidae). I have also studied the recruitment and regeneration of a diversity of Kibale’s 200+ angiosperm trees. My ecological data set from Uganda is complemented by comparative data I garner from other rain forests in the Paleo- and Neotropics, by physiological (especially digestive) data I collect on captive primates under experimental conditions, and by plant chemical and nutritional data that colleagues and I collect in the laboratory.
My central research program focuses on animal phenotpyic plasticity, the natural selection of feeding-related adaptations (physiological, morphological, and behavioral) in apes and monkeys, and the implications of these adaptations for:
(i) interpreting species interactions and the evolution and maintenance of species abundance and richness; (ii) the evolution of clade level feeding adaptations; (iii) explaining and predicting extant community interactions among plant, animal, and fungal species; and (iv) implementing sound tactics for the conservation of biodiversity.
I have a number of research projects either underway or currently in development. Examples of these include:
• Short-chain fatty acid profiles of gorillas, chimpanzees, and African Cercopithecoidea (with Dr. Vivek Fellner, North Carolina State University)
• Ecophysiology of digestive microbial communities in the Catarrhini of Kibale (with Dr. Vivek Fellner, North Carolina State University)
• Seed removal by frugivore coteries and cascading effects on forest regeneration – the role of primates relative to birds (on-going, data analysis underway)
• Using information on extant patterns of nutritional ecology and feeding morphology and plasticity to explicate the evolution of niche structure and mechanisms of coexistence amongst closely related, sympatric species (on-going, data analysis underway)
• Consumption and uptake of protein in simple and complex-stomached primates (with Drs Colin Chapman & Jessica Rothman, McGill University)
Please refer to my UW - Madison www-site for more information about my work, advice for students, etc.: http://www.anthropology.wisc.edu/lambert/ I can be reached at both my UW-Madison email address (jelambert@wisc.edu) as well as my Duke email address (joanna.lambert@duke.edu). My telephone number at my Duke office is 919.660.7328.
- Education:
- Ph.D., University of Illinois @ Urbana - Champaign, 1997
- Contact Info:
- 107B Biological Sciences Bldg |
+1 919 684 4124 |
joanna.lambert@duke.edu
|
http://www.anthropology.wisc.edu/lambert/