Speaker: David Taylor, Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station, Oregon State University

Topic: Leveraging stable isotope analyses to answer questions about species responses to changing environments. Lessons from terrestrial mammals and marine fishes. 

David Taylor is a postdoctoral scholar who recently joined Dr. Jessica Miller’s lab at HMSC. He completed his PhD in 2019, also at Oregon State University, studying stable isotope ecology in desert rodents across large spatial and temporal scales. Now he is leveraging stable isotope analysis to investigate the responses of Pacific cod to variation in ocean temperature over decades to millennia. Here, he will share 1) how he used stable isotope analysis of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen as proxies for dietary and environmental niche breadth in desert rodents, and tested the hypothesis that aridity gradients, especially in mountain ranges, can drive carbon and nitrogen isotopic signals potentially confounding inferences made based on isotopic niche breadth. He will also, 2) present preliminary analysis of his current work using carbon and oxygen stable isotope analysis to recreate individual environmental, metabolic, and growth histories of modern and ancient Gulf of Alaska Pacific Cod and identify the physiological and behavioral strategies used by individuals. He will also compare biochronologies of fish growth and temperature over time across climate conditions during modern and ancient periods in order to evaluate if, and how, the relationship between temperature and growth changed during different climate conditions and across time.