Dr. Jerry Husak was a postdoctoral fellow in the Hopkins’ laboratory from 2006-2007. He worked on a project investigating the potential effects of pollution on aquatic turtle communities and food web dynamics. Jerry completed additional postdocs with Ignacio Moore (Virginia Tech) and Duncan J. Irschick (U. Mass Amherst).

He is currently an assistant professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

Dr. Husak’s research focuses on the mechanisms and consequences of natural and sexual selection in nature. His research projects include understanding the role of behavior in the evolution of form and function, sexual selection on functional traits such as weapon morphology, the evolution of color signals to advertise performance abilities (i.e., Honest signals), and the role of hormones in mediating how sexual signals advertise male performance.

Visit the “Lizard Lab at St. Thomas”

jhusak

Representative Publications

Husak, J. F., H. A. Ferguson*, and M. B. Lovern. 2016. Tradeoffs among locomotor performance, reproduction, and immunity in lizards. Functional Ecology, in press. (*UST undergraduate)

Wilson, R. S., J. F. Husak, C. Clemente, and L. Halsey. 2015. Predicting the movement speeds of animals in natural environments. Integrative and Comparative Biology 55:1125-1141.

Wilson, R. S., and J. F. Husak. 2015. Introduction to the symposium: towards a general framework for predicting animal movement speeds in nature. Integrative and Comparative Biology 55:1121-1124.

Sathe, E. A.*, and J. F. Husak. 2015. Sprint sensitivity and locomotor trade-offs in green anole (Anolis carolinensis) lizards. Journal of Experimental Biology 218:2174-2179. (*UST undergraduate)

Husak, J. F.  2015. Measuring selection on physiology in the wild and manipulating phenotypes (in terrestrial non-human vertebrates). Comprehensive Physiology 6:63-85.

Husak, J. F., A. R. Keith*, and B. N. Wittry*. 2015. Making Olympic lizards: the effects of specialised exercise training on lizard performance. Journal of Experimental Biology 218:899-906. (*UST undergraduates)

Husak, J. F., and S. P. Lailvaux. 2014. An evolutionary perspective on conflict and compensation in physiological and functional traits. Current Zoology 60:755-767. (Invited paper for special issue: “Ecological and Evolutionary Connections between Morphology, Behavior and Physiology”). pdf

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. A.  McGuire. 2014. Does ‘gliding while gravid’ explain Rensch’s rule in flying lizards? Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 113:270-282.

Husak, J. F., and M. B. Lovern. 2014. Variation in steroid hormone levels among Caribbean Anolis lizards: endocrine system convergence? Hormones and Behavior 65:408-415.

Husak, J. F., J. P. Henningsen, B. Vanhooydonck, and D. J. Irschick. 2015. A performance-based approach to studying costs of reliable signals. Pages 47-74 in D. Irschick, M. Briffa, and J. Podos, Eds. Animal Signaling; Functional and Evolutionary Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons.

Husak, J. F., G. Ribak, R. H. Baker, G. S. Wilkinson, and J. G. Swallow. 2013. Effects of ornamentation and phylogeny on wing shape evolution in stalk-eyed flies (Diopsidae). Journal of Evolutionary Biology 26:1281-1293.

Eikenaar, C., J. F. Husak, C. Escallon, and I. T. Moore. 2012. Geographic variation in testosterone and baseline corticosterone in amphibians and reptiles. American Naturalist 180:642-654.