David Daversa, PhD

Stressors and their ecological consequences

Research Fellow

Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

University of California, Los Angeles

ddaversa@ucla.edu @davedaversa

Selected papers

Non-lethal effects of climate change and infectious disease

We developed an energetic framework that structures the study of non-lethal effects of climate change and infectious disease and their downstream demographic consequences.

Chytrid fungal infections in alpine toads proliferate during winter dormancy

Surveillance of Yosemite toads (Anaxyrus canorus) during their first year of life showed that pathogen prevalence and intensity gradually increased during the first two months of post-metamorphic growth, and increased four-fold in toads during the first winter dormancy.

Host identity matters, up to a point: the community context of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis transm

Sometimes species-level differences in susceptibility and infectiousness matter to R0. Sometimes they don't.

Broadening the Ecology of Fear

Both predators and parasites are consumers, and both impact prey and hosts without direct killing. Are non-lethal effects of parasitism the same as those of predation?

Habitat patchiness drives spatial structure in morphological trait variation and co-variation in spo

Spotted salamanders, like all animals, vary substantially in length, mass and other functional morphological traits. How much does spatial structure in there habitat drive that variation?

Daversa et al. 2018. PeerJ

Seasonal migrations, body temperature fluctuations, and infection dynamics in adult amphibians

Daversa et al. 2018. Funct. Ecol

Routine habitat switching alters the likelihood and persistence of infection with a pathogenic parasite

Daversa et al. 2017. Proc.Roy.Soc. B

Infections on the move: how transient phases of host movement influence disease spread