Meet the Principal Investigator

Gary Burness, PhD

I am an ecological and evolutionary physiologist at Trent University, Canada. My research focuses on animal energetics, particularly how animals allocate energy among the competing demands of metabolism, immunity, growth and reproduction. Because all living organisms use energy, students in our lab work with various species, from birds to fish to mammals, depending on the research question of interest.

Current lab members

  • Megan Heft

    Megan Heft, PhD Candidate

    Megan completed her BS (Hons) at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. She is interested in the interaction between artificial light at night and temperature regulation in birds. Currently, she is working with nest-box breeding tree swallows

    Personal website

  • Emma Byers holding butterfly

    Emma Byers, PhD Candidate

    Emma completed her BSc (Hons) at Trent University on window collisions in birds. Her PhD thesis explores causes and consequences of phenotypic variation in butterflies. Emma is co-supervised by Michelle DiLeo (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry).

  • Morgan Jaggard beside nestbox

    Morgan Jaggard, MSc student

    Morgan completed his BSc (Hons) at the the University of Guelph. He is studying whether the environment in which nestling zebra finches are reared impacts their thermal physiology.

  • Seth Shaw

    Seth Shaw, MSc student

    Seth comes to us from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is interested in how tree swallows and other species adjust their parental behaviour in response to high environmental temperatures.

  • Andrew Millar

    Andrew Millar, MSc student

    Andrew completed his BSc (Hons) at McMaster University. He is interested in the development of endothermy in birds and mammals. Andrew is co-supervised by Cayleih Robertson

  • Zöe Dasilva

    Zöe Dasilva, BSc (Hons) student

    Zöe is an undergraduate student in Conservation Biology. Her honours thesis research is on the effects of temperature during development on butterfly colour.

  • Abbey Conroy

    Abbey Conroy, BSc (Hons) student

    Abbey is a Forensics-Biology major. Her thesis research involves testing the long-term effects of environmental temperature on heat loss in zebra finches. Abbey is co-supervised by Cayleih Robertson.

  • Hayden Mignacca

    Hayden Mignacca, BSc (Hons) student

    Hayden is completing an undergraduate degree Biology. For his thesis research he is studying how cold-shocks during development affect the growth and survival of larval butterflies.

Past lab members