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| DAVID S. GREEN |
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BS Student
PO BOX 874601
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-4601
dsgreen@asu.edu
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RESEARCH INTERESTS
I am an undergraduate senior majoring in conservation biology with a minor in political science. Through my experiences within the Gerber Lab, I have had the opportunity to develop my own independent research project and by being a student of the Barrett Honors College and a Fellow in the School of Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Program (SOLUR), I have advanced my current and future interests. Through these experiences, I have become very fascinated in the interactions of behavior as it relates to conservation, and the possibility of using behavior as a means to conserve native populations. In addition to this, I believe that policy is becoming increasingly important for the advancement of science, and have an interest in the political aspect behind many scientific decisions. By participating in conducting field research on sea lion behavior on the islands of Granito and San Jorge in the Gulf of California (GoC), Mexico, during the summers of 2005 and 2006, I gained further insight into the behavior of marine mammals and created the basis for my own research.
For my independent research, I am developing a non-invasive technique of measuring condition and growth rates in California sea lion pups. This is very important because the effects of human disturbance on animal behavior have become an increasingly large issue in conservation. At a practical level it is thus important to develop non-invasive means of gathering information for imperiled populations. In this study we examined the extent to which animal behavior reflects body condition and growth rates for California sea lions (Zalophus californianus). Our goal was to understand the mechanistic relationship between the behavior of sea lion pups and their overall status. With this project, I have been able to present my research at many different scientific conferences, and am planning to submit a manuscript for publication in the near future.
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