Meghan Duffy, Susan S. Kilham Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies, was just featured in Michigan News in an article titled "The generational impact of illness". 

“Scientists have spent a lot of time studying virulence, which is generally defined as the impact a parasite has on the fitness of its host. But all of that usually only considers the impact on the particular host individual who is infected,” said Meghan Duffy, senior author of the study, which was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation.

“We know for other things, like if a mother is starving and doesn’t have enough resources, that can influence her offspring. If she’s exposed to a predator, that can influence her offspring. We know these effects can carry across generations. We just somehow haven’t really considered that for virulence, as far as we can tell.”

Duffy studies symbiotic relationships in freshwater plankton, often focusing on daphnia. Daphnia are an incredibly common freshwater crustacean, sort of like a tiny shrimp. One scoop of water from a North American lake might have hundreds of the tiny, transparent crustaceans swimming through it. They are also an indicator of water quality: daphnia are sensitive to many pollutants, so having a lot of daphnia in a lake is a good sign, Duffy says.

Read the full article here. 

Visit the Duffy Lab.