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Mark Chappell

MARK CHAPPELL

Professor of Biology
Office: 2312 Spieth Hall (Biology)
Office phone: 951-827-7709
Lab phone: 951-827-6418
Facsimile:  951-827-4286


E-mail: mark.chappell@ucr.edu

Degree:  Ph.D., Stanford University, 1977

My laboratory studies animal physiological ecology, with emphasis on adaptations to extreme environmental conditions (particularly in desert, polar, and montane habitats), energetics and behavior of free-living animals, evolutionary physiology (particularly of aerobic traits), and behavioral ecology (particularly reproductive effort and signal costs).  I use techniques from mainstream physiology, but am interested in evolutionary and ecological questions as well as organismal form and function per se.  My students and I participate in both the Evolutionary Biology and the Physiology graduate groups.  In addition, I participate in the University of California Intercampus Research Program on Experimental Evolution (UCIRPEE) and its successor, the Network for Experimental Research on Evolution (NERE).  Some of the things the lab has worked on over the years include:

  • Foraging behavior (abstract) and reproductive energetics (abstract) of Adélie penguins. I am also interested in the energetics of other birds.  Especially big ones.
  • Repeatability (individual consistency) of aerobic performance in ground squirrels and red junglefowl (abstract)
  • Energetics of metamorphosis in holometabolous insects (such as sphinx moths)
  • The energy metabolism of daily torpor in hummingbirds (abstract)
  • Accommodation of changing oxygen demand by the ventilatory system in birds and mammals (abstract)
  • Effects of parasites on aerobic performance in vertebrates and insects (abstract)

Current and recent projects include:

Some Representative Publications....
  • Battam, H, Chappell MA, Buttemer WA (2007). The effect of food temperature on post-prandial metabolism in albatrosses. In press, Journal of Experimental Biology.
  • Wiersma P, Chappell MA, Williams JB (2007). Cold- and exercise-induced peak metabolic rates in tropical birds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)104: 20866-20871.
  • Chappell MA, Garland T, Robertson GF, Saltzman W (2007). Relationships among running performance, aerobic physiology and organ mass in male Mongolian gerbils. Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 4179-4197.
  • Chappell MA, hammond KA, Cardullo RA, Russell GA, Rezende EL, Miller C (2007). Deer mouse aerobic performance across altitudes: effects of developmental history and temperature acclimation. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 80: 652-662.
  • Russell GA, Chappell MA (2006). Is BMR repeatable in deer mice? Organ mass correlates and the effects of cold acclimation and natal altitude. Journal of Comparative Physiology B 177: 75-87.
  • Rezende EL, Kelly SA, Gomes FR, Chappell MA, Garland T, (2006). Effects of size, sex, and voluntary running speeds on costs of locomotion in lines of laboratory mice selectively bred for high wheel-running activity. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 79: 83-99.
  • Chappell MA, Garland T, Rezende EL, Gomes FR (2004). Voluntary running in deer mice: speed, distance, energy costs, and temperature effects. Journal of Experimental Biology 207: 3839-3854.
  • Odell JP, Chappell MA (2004). Predation intensity does not cause microevolutionary change in maximum speed or aerobic capacity in Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata: Peters). Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 77: 27-38.
  • Chappell MA, Rezende EL, Hammond KA (2003). Age and aerobic performance in deer mice. Journal of Experimental Biology 206: 1221-1231.
  • Kolluru GR, Zuk N, Chappell MA (2002). Reduced reproductive effort in male field crickets infested with parasitoid fly larvae. Behvioural Ecology 13: 607-614.
  • Chappell MA, Bech C, Buttemer WA (1999) The relationship of central and peripheral organ masses to aerobic performance variation in House Sparrows. Journal of Experimental Biology 202:2269-2279. 
  • Bachman GC, Chappell MA (1998) The energetic cost of begging behaviour in nestling House Wrens.  Animal Behaviour 55:1607-1618. 
  • Chappell MA, Zuk M, Johnsen TS, Kwan TH (1997) Mate choice and aerobic capacity in red junglefowl.  Behaviour 134:511-529. 
  • Chappell MA, Janes DN, Shoemaker VH, Bucher TL, Maloney SK (1993).  Reproductive effort in Adélie Penguins.  Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 33:173-182. 

(click here for a complete publication list)

Grad students frequently found in my lab:

Recent Teaching....
  • Biology 5B, Introduction to Organismal Biology
  • Biology 160, Animal Behavior
  • Biology 3, Organisms in their Environment

   I also write data acquisition software for Macintosh computers.
        

    In my spare time I indulge a serious addiction to nature photography.

Adult wandering albatross (Diomedia exulans or D.  gibsoni*) captured for metabolic studies off Wollongong on the south-east coast of Australia.  The birds are banded and released unharmed within 2-3 days; they are remarkably placid in captivity.  Wanderers have the longest wingspan of any living bird (more than 3 meters and sometimes as much as 3.6 meters).  Some individuals in this population were first banded in the late 1950s and continue to return to the Wollongong area every winter.  A few are known to be over 50 years old -- the very white male in the photo at the top of this page is one of these.

I'm the one with the hat; the other nonflying terrestrial vertebrate in the photo is Harry Battam from the University of Wollongong, a world authority on albatross biology.

* the taxonomy of albatrosses is currently undergoing revision