Mechanistic basis for amphibian resilience to climate change and disease

Ana V. Longo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Before starting this tenure-track position, Ana was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Maryland and Smithsonian Institution from 2015 to 2018. She received her PhD in 2015 from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. Ana has degrees in Biology (MS and BS) from University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras. Ana has taught courses in the topics of disease ecology and evolution, introductory biology, microbiome analyses, herpetology, and undergraduate field immersion experiences. Ana’s research interests are to identify and quantify the ecological and evolutionary processes that allow hosts to interact with their pathogens, parasites, and symbionts. Her interest in herpetology started as an effort to understand the role of fungal pathogens in global amphibian declines. Ana has built a research program primarily focused on identifying the determinants of disease defenses in tropical amphibians persisting with seasonal infections of the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Her work on Puerto Rican direct-developing frogs combines field and experimental studies, providing mechanistic insights on how aquatic pathogens infect terrestrial species. In addition to her work in Puerto Rico, Ana has studied other amphibian systems in North America, México, Panamá, Brazil, and Chile.

Speaker: Ana Longo, University of Florida

Room: Auditorium