Erin Sauer is a wildlife disease ecologist. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow in biological sciences at the University of Arkansas, and now she’s faculty at Rutgers. However, while she was in Fayetteville, she co-authored a study testing how differing birds’ diets affect their ability to tolerate infection.
She collaborated with doctoral candidate Carson Stacy for the paper, and they both connected with Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis over Zoom earlier this week. Sauer and Stacy explain the experiments and how offering canaries different food impacted their gene expression and ability to withstand an infection common in songbirds.
