Michael Sheriff

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My research interests lie in how physiological processes shape the ecology of free ranging animals and vice versa. Particularly how the sub-lethal effects of predation and food availability affect stress physiology which in turn impacts behaviour and population dynamics. For my PhD I studied the cause of the low phase of the snowshoe hare population cycle. Through my findings, I propose that the low phase of the cycle is caused by the indirect effects of predation risk. These indirect effects act by altering the physiological and neurological make-up of snowshoe hares (the hypothalamus and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis). The inheritance of this maternal stress, through maternal programming of the HPA axis, may cause the offspring’s reproduction to lag behind their environment, resulting in the inability of the hare population to recover immediately following the population decline.