2. Meet Scientist: Dr. Oliver P. Love (Assistant Professor)
Assistant Professor
“My research examines the physiological
mechanisms driving life-history trade-offs and
variation in fitness in temperate and Arctic
avian systems. I received my BSc from
Concordia University, my MSc from McGill,
and my PhD from Simon Fraser University. My
NSERC-funded post-doc at the Université du
Québec à Rimouski involved work in the
Eastern Canadian Arctic. I joined the Biology
Department at the University of Windsor in
July 2009.”
http://www.oliverlovelab.com/
Assistant Professor
3. Love’s Lab
The goal of the Love Lab is to inspire and support bright, enthusiastic young
scientist to help explore, examine, and conserve the world around them.
The Love Lab approaches ecological questions by techniques and theory from 3
main areas:
1. Evolutionary Physiology
• Examines the role of phenotypic variation in qualitymediated physiological traits and their costs and benefits.
• How and why inter-individual variations in physiological traits
affect fitness.
4. Love’s Lab
2. Behavioural Ecology
• Concerned with how human-induced changes in the
environment, which affects individual fitness and population
health.
• Human-induced changes—climate change and habitat
alteration
5. Love’s Lab
3. Conservation Biology
• Primarily study artic and temperate avian systems.
• Collaboratively in Aquatic systems.
6. Love’s Lab
As scientists we are meant to be impartial, collect data
and record the world, not to directly influence policy or the
government.
Nothing in science is certain or proven; we are only
creating the best picture possible of what is happening in
the world.
7. The Scientific Method
Love’s Lab
Think and ask questions.
Observe what actually occurs.
Create a potential explanation for what is
happening.
Design a test that will differentiate your
explanation from other possible
explanations, trying to eliminate them.
This either leads to your idea being
correct or incorrect.
Finally, explain your results… and try
again!
8. Lab Ethics
Love’s Lab
This lab studies hormone levels, which
requires them to take blood samples.
The birds stay free. The techniques they
use are non invasive ecology.
Smallest blood samples possible are
drawn.
They also collect insects that the birds eat
to see the available food resources.
In the end, it’s all in an effort to understand
how we can best protect these populations
of birds.
9. Permits
Love’s Lab
The Arctic is extremely sensitive
and under-studied.
Studying Arctic species is hard.
Animal care committee makes sure
we don’t abuse or harm animals.
Federal and regional permits are
needed because they are on Inuit
lands, as well as national
conservation land.
10. Love’s Lab
Research Species
Tree Swallows
(Tachycineta bicolor)
Seaducks Common eiders
(Somateria mollissima)
White-winged scoters
(Melanitta deglandi)
Antarctic petrels (Thalassoic
antarctica)
Thick-billed murre or
Brünnich’s guillemot
(Uria lomvia)
11. Stress Hormones
Corticosterone
in birds and reptiles
Cortisol
in humans and fish
Cortisone
artificial hormone given to
people in hospital
Stress can be helpful to you;
But, chronic stress isn’t!
Love’s Lab
12. Stress Hormones
TREE SWALLOWS
-Populations declining fast!
-Measure how birds are doing in:
disturbed habitats (agriculture & cities)
vs. undisturbed habitats (marshland).
- Showing higher stress hormones.
-Equal numbers of young… but how??
Love’s Lab
13. Lab Stuff
Love’s Lab
The kits on the left are used for measuring the level of stress hormone in the blood.
Plasma, (the cleaner, fluid portion of blood) is kept in huge freezers
(-80deg. Celsius) until they are taken out and measured.
14. Hormone Assay
The different blood samples
are put into this assay
Many hormones can be
measured (assayed) in the
blood, to give an indication of
metabolic processes and
conditions, or “hormone
imbalances”.
Love’s Lab
15. Hormone Assay
Love’s Lab
The strength of the yellow colour shows
the amount of hormone in each well.
An expensive machine shoots light
through each well and measures how
much light comes out the other side to
determine amount of hormones in each
well.
16. Study Systems
Love’s Lab
Snow buntings are a circumpolar Arctic-breeding
songbird that has declined by an estimated 60% in
North America over the past 45 years. We are
combining studies of their breeding, migratory and
wintering biology to determine the mechanisms behind
these declines. We monitor breeding and migratory
activities using a focal population at East bay island
studies since 2007, and we have developed a large
network of academic and citizen scientists (Canadian
Snow Bunting Network – CSBN) to monitor the
wintering behaviour of this species across southern
Canada and the northern US.
SNOW BUNTINGS (Plectrophenax nivalis)
17. Snow Bunting Research
Through studying feathers
alone, they can measure
hormones, and can determine
the potential mating
possibilities of other birds
based solely on their
markings and colouring.
Love’s Lab
18. Love Lab Animal Corridor
These Zebra Finches are bred in captivity
and are used to do the tests that can’t be
done to sensitive wild animals.
The answers that are observed are the other
pieces to the scientific puzzle that the lab and
bloodworm might not be able to answer.
Love’s Lab
19. Zebra Finch
The white
finches are born
with a genetic
mutation.
Love’s Lab
In the wild,
these white
birds would be
dead as they
would be
spotted and
picked off by
predators very
quickly.
20. Love’s Lab
Zebra Finch
These other variations of the
Zebra Finches can also survive
because they are cared for my
humans.
Quasimodo &
(one wing)
Midget
(splayed legs)
French Toast
(little chubs)
The goal of the Love Lab is to inspire and support bright, enthusiastic young scientist to help explore, examine, and conserve the world around them.
The Love Lab approaches ecological questions by techniques and theory from:
•Evolutionary Physiology
The way in which functional characteristics of individuals in a population of organism have responded to selection across multiple generations during the history of the population
•Examines the role of phenotypic variation in quality-mediated physiological traits and their costs and benefits
•How and why inter-individual variations in physiological traits affect fitness
•Behavioural Ecology
The evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures
•Concerned with how human-induced changes in the environment, which affects individual fitness and population health.
•Human-induced changes—climate change and habitat alteration
•Conservation Biology
•Nature and the status of Earth’s biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions.
•Primarily study artic and temperate avian systems
•Collaboratively in Aquatic systems
Arctic species are very delicate - as is the ecosystem. We know so little about the way the Arctic ecosystem actually works and it’s changing faster than any other ecosystem on earth. So we need to be extremely careful when we study it, how many people we send, what we do with the waste, etc. The scientists actually conduct research on native land. This means tonnes of permits. It’s good to know that the government actually considers these things and sets up barriers to the destruction of the Arctic.
Tree swallows are declining more rapidly than any other bird in Canada. The lab studies stress hormone levels to potentially explain the cause. These other groups are all arctic species, many of which are very under-studied.
Tree swallows love marshland habitats. They measured stress hormone levels for tree swallows in human-disturbed habitats, affected by agriculture and cities. They saw higher stress levels in the disturbed population.BUT Surprisingly, the birds in the two different places had the same number of young. How do they account for this? The stressed birds have much shorter lifespan.
-These Zebra Finches are bred in captivity and are used to do the tests that can’t be done to sensitive wild animals.
-The answers that are observed are the other pieces to the scientific puzzle that the lab and bloodworm might not be able to answer.
-For example the lab can ask, if you don’t get enough food and fats, would your stress hormone levels be high or low. They can test this and find out that the stress hormones in the blood would be high.. showing a direct correlation between stress hormones and diet.
-Another interesting fact about the Zebra Finches are that they are native to Australia and accustom to around 30 degree climate. The lab controls the temperature and humidity of the lab to keep the finches within that range.
The white finches are born with a genetic mutation.In the wild, these white birds would be dead as they would be spotted and picked off by predators very quickly.
-BUT, because this is a controlled environment with no predators, other than humans, they can survive.
These are a few of the other birds what would normally have died in the wild because they were born with some type of disability. My favourite is Quasimodo who just hopped around the bottom of the cage with her friend. They even put in a little perch for Midget so that she could rest her splayed legs and be able to stand up with her friend.
Here are a few pictures of how we were taught to hold her, how the lab keeps track of these birds and measures and inspects their wings, growth and overall health.
Here Dr. Love tells us a little bit about our friends the Zebra Finches.
