Our laboratory is interested in the adaptations of marine mammals and seabirds to life in the marine environment.
Current research focuses on the foraging and reproductive energetics of pinnipeds and seabirds.
These groups exhibit different foraging and reproductive patterns even though both groups feed at sea and remain tied to shore for reproduction. Although such limitations pose similar problems, each group has adapted in different ways. Our group is interested in the ecological and physiological constraints that may be responsible for these different adaptations. In order to better understand these differences we are quantitatively examining the patterning of energy acquisition while at sea and its subsequent allocation during reproduction. Factors such as locomotory mode, distance to the foraging grounds, and the quality of the food resource all affect parental energy acquisition and the subsequent provisioning of the young.