Duke Economics

Research Description

I am a field-based scientist, and have worked at my primary field site, Kibale National Park, Uganda, since 1991. Of Kibale’s many vertebrate species, there I have studied one ape species (Pan troglodytes), two colobine monkeys (Colobus guereza, Procolobus badius), and three cercopithecine monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius, C. mitis, and Lophocebus albigena), as well as a diversity of avian frugivores (e.g., Sturnidae, Bucerotidae, Columbidae). I have also studied the recruitment and regeneration of a diversity of Kibale’s 200+ angiosperm trees. My ecological data set from Uganda is complemented by comparative data I garner from other rain forests in the Paleo- and Neotropics, by physiological (especially digestive) data I collect on captive primates under experimental conditions, and by plant chemical and nutritional data that colleagues and I collect in the laboratory.

My central research program focuses on animal phenotpyic plasticity, the natural selection of feeding-related adaptations (physiological, morphological, and behavioral) in apes and monkeys, and the implications of these adaptations for:

(i) interpreting species interactions and the evolution and maintenance of species abundance and richness; (ii) the evolution of clade level feeding adaptations; (iii) explaining and predicting extant community interactions among plant, animal, and fungal species; and (iv) implementing sound tactics for the conservation of biodiversity.

I have a number of research projects either underway or currently in development. Examples of these include:

• Short-chain fatty acid profiles of gorillas, chimpanzees, and African Cercopithecoidea (with Dr. Vivek Fellner, North Carolina State University)

• Ecophysiology of digestive microbial communities in the Catarrhini of Kibale (with Dr. Vivek Fellner, North Carolina State University)

• Seed removal by frugivore coteries and cascading effects on forest regeneration – the role of primates relative to birds (on-going, data analysis underway)

• Using information on extant patterns of nutritional ecology and feeding morphology and plasticity to explicate the evolution of niche structure and mechanisms of coexistence amongst closely related, sympatric species (on-going, data analysis underway)

• Consumption and uptake of protein in simple and complex-stomached primates (with Drs Colin Chapman & Jessica Rothman, McGill University)

Please refer to my UW - Madison www-site for more information about my work, advice for students, etc.: http://www.anthropology.wisc.edu/lambert/ I can be reached at both my UW-Madison email address (jelambert@wisc.edu) as well as my Duke email address (joanna.lambert@duke.edu). My telephone number at my Duke office is 919.660.7328.