The Dillon Lab

Michael Dillon, Principal Investigator

Professor & L. Floyd Clarke Chair, Department of Zoology & Physiology and Program in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Wyoming. I am a broadly trained integrative organismal biologist primarily interested in the interplay between organism physiology and the abiotic environment. In particular, mountains provide striking abiotic gradients matched by fascinating organismal responses; I spend a lot of time running up and down mountains chasing (mostly) insects. See Research and Publications and here is a (hopefully) up-to-date CV .

MEGAN DILLON, LABORATORY MANAGER

Anna Cressman, Laboratory Technician

DAVID M. SHAYNE DODGE, doctoral STUDENT IN ZOOLOGY & PHYSIOLOGY

I received a BS in Biology through the University of Wyoming at Casper program the fall of 2018. My previous research experience was funded by the Wyoming INBRE program, and led by Dr. Hayley C. Lanier (now at the University of Oklahoma) and Dr. Scott Seville (project PI, University of Wyoming). The scope of this periodical study covered the population dynamics and succession of plants and small mammals following large scale burns such as the 1988 Huckleberry Mt. Fire in Yellowstone National Park. Along with the succession research (2017), I conducted an experiment to test the effects of crypsis on predation rates in these post-burn environments among deer mice and southern red-backed voles. My current prospective PhD work centers around two main and related themes of bumble bee thermal physiology. The first involves using respirometry and other thermal tolerance methods to characterize the winter dormancy (diapause) of bumble bee queens, and the second pertains to understanding where heterothermic insects (bumble bees) fall on the “thermy-continuum” in relation to various types of dormancy exhibited across taxa.

Jordan Glass, Post-Doctoral Researcher in Zoology & Physiology

My research has focused on closely related, interacting effects that impact insect survival and persistence in light of climate change. My background ranges from studying nutritional physiology (B.Sc. – Arizona State University, 2016), to multiple-stressor frameworks and how these factors influence life-history traits and trade-offs and metabolic plasticity (M.Sc. – University of the Pacific, 2019), to the effects of thermal stress, temperature variation, and agrochemical exposure on the flight energetics, thermoregulation, and thermal physiology of large flying insects (Ph.D. – Arizona State University, 2023). My research goals are to improve our ability to predict the thermal vulnerability of bumble bee species by systematically measuring ecological, physiological, and molecular responses to environmental changes.

ELLEN KEAVENY, DOCTORAL STUDENT IN PROGRAM IN ECOLOGY and evolution

In 2012, I received a BS in Environmental Biology and a BA in Spanish from Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO with a thesis focused on the effects of Sudden Aspen Decline on understory microclimates and plant biomass. The following years I worked at a human tissue bank cleaning and processing donor grafts in an aseptic environment and ultimately coordinating grafts for transplant. As a second-year graduate student, I am focused on the cold tolerance of bumble bees, specifically looking at how diet and temperature influence bumble bee thermal physiology and cellular composition through lab and field studies. Broadly, I would like to link climate and altitude with floral phenology to identify the indirect cascading effects of environmental shifts on bumble bees.

SARAH WAYBRIGHT, DOCTORAL STUDENT IN PROGRAM IN ECOLOGY and evolution

Broadly, I study queen bumble bee overwintering physiology. I am currently exploring how where a queen bumble bee overwinters influences her survival and energy usage while overwintering, and/or her fitness post-winter. Through a combination of field work, lab work, and empirical modeling approaches, I aim to predict if the changing climate may impact bumble bee abundance and spatial distribution now and in the future.

SABRINA WHITE, DOCTORAL STUDENT IN ZOOLOGY & PHYSIOLOGY

I received my BS in Entomology and Nematology from the University of Florida in 2014, where I studied insect pest resistance to radiation under modified atmospheric conditions. Afterwards, I moved out west where I pursued work in the outdoor industry and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. I am broadly interested in insect adaptations to living in extreme environments and I am currently focused on the effects of heat stress on bumble bee worker capabilities and how that in turn impacts a colony’s success.

Alumni

RACHEL SUCHARSKI, BS PHYSIOLOGY, 2023

TAYLOR HATCHER, BS BIOLOGY, 2022

CLAIRE CAMPION, MS ZOOLOGY & PHYSIOLOGY, 2022

Claire received her Master’s degree in December of 2022. She is now in Minnesota working as a Science Educator & Outreach Coordinator at the nonprofit Science from Scientists!

CRAIG GARZELLA

TRAVIS RUSCH, POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER, 2022

Travis’ postdoctoral research in the Dillon Lab focused on the thermal physiology of bumble and solitary bees. He accepted a postdoctoral position at the USDA in Manhattan, Kansas.

ETHAN ROWE, BS ZOOLOGY, 2021

Ethan was both a Wyoming Research Scholar and an recipient of a Wyoming NASA Space Grant fellowship. He coordinated between the Dillon lab and the Rule lab to use GC-FID to characterize fatty acid profiles for bumble bees, evaluated behavioral indicators of bumble bee queen rearing success, and characterized seasonal variation in sub-nivean insect communities and their thermal performance. He is now a PhD student in Michael Smith’s lab at Auburn.

SARAH WANNEMUEHLER, BS wildlife and fisheries biology and management, 2021

As a Wyoming Research Scholar and Wyoming NASA Space Grant fellow, Sarah studied how altitude and water affect dissolved oxygen in streams, rivers, and lakes and how, in turn, temperature and DO structure size distributions of aquatic invertebrates.

ROMAN WINTER, BS Zoology, 2021

ANNA CRESSMAN, BS Wildlife and fisheries biology and management, 2019

Zach Parsons, BS Zoology, 2019

Delina Dority, MS Zoology and Physiology, 2019

Christy Bell, MS Zoology and Physiology, 2019

Kennan Oyen, PhD Program in Ecology, 2018

Susma Giri, PhD Program in Ecology, 2016

Annie Krueger, BS Physiology, 2016

Kimberly Sheldon, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, 2014-2016

Sarah DePaolo, MS Zoology and Physiology, 2015

Jessica Vogt, MS Zoology and Physiology, 2014

Olivia H.A. Nater, MS Zoology and Physiology, 2014

Olivia completed her MS on the impacts of recent climate change on native bee and plant populations. She is now working for the IUCN in Geneva, Switzerland.

Jonathan Rader, MS Zoology and Physiology, 2014

Jonathan completed his MS looking at morphological diversification and isotopic niches of Cinclodes ovenbirds. He is now a PhD student in Ty Hedrick’s lab at UNC.

People