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Improving nutrition of ruminant livestock through study of microbes of the rumen; increasing supply of microbial protein available to animal digestion; discovering biochemical pathways that microbes use to ferment carbohydrates in feed.

Aquatic ecology and toxicology

Research Interests: Anthrozoology, including humans and their service dogs, impacts on humans of animal death, effects of humans on their pets’ behaviors, effects of timing of neutering dogs, mahouts’ relationships with elephants; and Animal Behavior, including elephant communication and social behavior, canine behavior

Systems microbiology, microbial proceses in natural and artificial ecosystems, microbes and microbial enzymes for agricultural, medical, and industrial applications, microbe-host interaction, gastrointestinal microbiology, biofuels, bioproducts, bioremediation, microbial dark matter.

Research Interests: Ontogeny and heritability of stress-coping styles in domestic farm animals; cognitive evaluation of affective states in animals.

Endocrine regulation of mammary gland development, lactation and breast cancer, gene expression and cell-cell interactions.

Nutrition and metabolism; micronutrient and dietary bioactive compounds; early life nutrition and disease resilience

Modeling sustainable agricultural production. Energy and nutrient requirements of cattle, swine, and poultry. Empirical, mechanistic, and simulation models of nutrient utilization. Modeling of nutrient dynamics in manure; and greenhouse gas emissions of animals, manure and soil.

Production measurements/biochemical functions in poultry associated with climate change; effects of probiotics, horticultural byproducts, and upcycled waste on production/biochemical functions, and nutritional quality of poultry meat and eggs; microbial transfer from laying hens to chicks.

Cellular osmoregulation, intracellular stress signaling, comparative genomics and proteomics of environmental adaptation in fish and mammals.