Bonier Lab

Challenges of Disease

Parasites and pathogens affect practically every living organism. Yet the ways that individuals respond to and cope with infectious disease are not always clear. In past research, we experimentally assessed how red-winged blackbirds cope with infection with haemosporidian parasites. These blood-borne pathogens include parasites from the genus Plasmodium, which causes malaria in many vertebrate species, including humans and blackbirds. Our study population at the Queen's Biology Station experiences remarkably high prevalence of infection, with practically every breeding adult infected with parasites from one or more genus of Hemosporidian.

In collaborations with former Bonier lab members Dr. Laura Schoenle (PhD student), Dr. Ivana Schoepf (postdoc and collaborator), and Sarena Olson (MSc student), along with collaborator Dr. Ignacio Moore, we experimentally documented costs of infection in captive adult males and free-ranging breeding females and their offspring. You can read more about this research here, here, here, and here.     

We are not currently pursuing this research area.