Dr. Jerry Husak grew up in southeast Texas, went to college in west Texas, and did his graduate work at Oklahoma State University. He then held postdoctoral positions at Virginia Tech, the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, and the University of South Dakota before joining the faculty at St. Thomas. His work combines physiology, behavior, and life-history theory in an evolutionary framework to understand how form and function evolve.
Dr. Husak has authored over 70 peer-reviewed papers. He is an associate editor for Functional Ecology and serves on the editorial board of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. He has received funding for his research from the National Science Foundation and National Geographic.
Lab website - http://jerryhusak.weebly.com/index.html
"My research focuses on understanding how the processes of natural and sexual selection shape physiological and morphological traits. Specifically, I am interested in how and why organisms allocate limited resources to different aspects of their form and function, as well as what trade-offs occur with those ‘decisions’. I am particularly interested in how allocation to physical performance abilities (running, biting, flying, etc.) affects allocation to metabolism, reproduction, and immunity. To accomplish this, I integrate theory and techniques from physiology, evolutionary ecology, animal behavior, and functional morphology, and I combine laboratory experiments with correlative studies of natural populations. I primarily work with reptiles as model systems, and I conduct research in the southeastern US and the Caribbean. Some of my current projects include:
Performance- life-history tradeoffs
Effects of specialized exercise training on physiology and performance
The evolution of endocrine system variation and diversity (visit Hormonebase.org)
The roles of natural and sexual selection in the evolution of performance
Convergent evolution of neuroendocrine mechanisms regulating social behavior in Caribbean Anolis lizards"
Wang, A. Z. * and J. F. Husak. 2020. Endurance and sprint training affect immune function differently in green anole lizards (Anolis carolinensis). Journal of Experimental Biology 223: jeb232132.
Hanover, A. M.*, J. F. Husak, and M. Lovern. 2019. Corticosterone in lizard egg yolk is reduced by maternal diet restriction but unaltered by maternal exercise. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 92:573-578.
Husak, J.F., and S.P. Lailvaux. 2019. Experimentally enhanced performance decreases survival in nature. Biology Letters 15:20190160. doi: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0160.
Wang, A. Z.*, J. F. Husak, and M. Lovern. 2019. Leptin ameliorates the immunity, but not reproduction, trade-off with endurance in lizards. Journal of Comparative Physiology B 189:261-269. doi: 10.1007/s00360-019-01202-2.
Sathe, E. A.*, and J. F. Husak. 2018. Substrate-specific locomotor performance is associated with habitat use in six-lined racerunners (Aspidoscelis sexlineata). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 124:165-173.
Husak, J. F., H. A. Ferguson*, and M. B. Lovern. 2016. Tradeoffs among locomotor performance, reproduction, and immunity in lizards. Functional Ecology 30:1665-1674.
Husak, J. F., A. R. Keith*, and B. N. Wittry*. 2015. Making Olympic lizards: the effects of specialized exercise training on lizard performance. Journal of Experimental Biology 218:899-906.
Lailvaux, S. P., and J. F. Husak. 2014. The life-history of whole-organism performance. Quarterly Review of Biology 89:285-318.
Husak, J. F., and J. G. Swallow. 2011. Compensatory traits and the evolution of male ornaments. Behavior 148:1-29.
Husak, J. F., and I. T. Moore. 2008. Stress hormones and mate choice. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23:532-534.
Husak, J. F., and S. F. Fox. 2008. Sexual selection on locomotor performance. Evolutionary Ecology Research 10:213-228.
(Student researchers are denoted by *.)
For more publications visit my Google Scholar page.