I study the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission.  I am interested in how parasites move across habitats, as occurs when they are transmitted from host to host, why they are capable of doing it so successfully generation after generation, and how alterations to their environment threatens this process.  My work focuses on how parasite life histories adapt to anthropogenic changes to the environment, including changes in climate, and I have a particular interest in parasite species that transmit through food web and social contact networks that are being subjected to these changes.

I use field observations and experimental manipulations to make inferences about the behavior of parasites in wildlife populations and communities, and I have explored questions related to these topics in three different systems: fish-parasite food web networks in streams of the New Jersey Pinelands; parasites in primate food web and social networks in Japan; and parasites in a wild rabbit population in Scotland.  The diverse array of systems and questions that I have been fortunate to study afford me a unique perspective into the lives of a wide variety of parasites, and how they succeed at completing their life histories given the unique ecologies of the hosts they seek to infect.  Such an understanding is imperative in view of the anthropogenic global changes that increasingly threaten the existence of both parasites and hosts.

Bose BGV, Hernandez AD, Huffman MA, Moore, J 2011. Parasites and dung beetles as ecosystem engineers in a forest ecosystem. Journal of Insect Behavior DOI 10.1007/s10905-011-9305-5

Hayakawa S, Hernandez AD, Suzuki M, Sugaya K, Koda H, Hasegawa H, Endo H 2011.  Necropsy case report for an old wild Japanese macaque (Macaca fusucata yakui) from Yakushima. Reityouruikenkyu (Primate Research) 27: 3-10