Jessie Williamson
Zoology & Physiology
Assistant Professor
Education:
Ph.D., Biology, University of New Mexico, 2022
M.S., Biology, University of New Mexico, 2019
B.A., Biology, Middlebury College, 2012
Research Interests:
Evolution; ecology; ecophysiology; ornithology; migration; population genomics.
Research in my lab focuses on how elevation shapes behavior, physiology, and genomic change in birds using diverse approaches––migration tracking, field experiments, genomics, transcriptomics, and comparative studies with museum specimens. Our work includes projects on the evolutionary ecology and physiology of birds that make extreme seasonal shifts in elevation during migration, like the giant hummingbirds; the roles of plasticity and adaptation in organismal performance across elevations; and how interacting abiotic forces generate spatial patterns of biodiversity. Our research takes place in the South American Andes and Intermountain West
Please see Dr. Williamson's full publication list on Google Scholar:
Selected Publications:
Williamson, JL, EF Gyllenhaal, SM Bauernfeind, E Bautista, MJ Baumann, CR Gadek, N Ricote, PP Marra, F Bozinovic, ND Singh, and CC Witt. 2024. Extreme elevational migration spurred cryptic speciation in giant hummingbirds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121: e2313599121.
Ivy, CM and JL Williamson. 2024. On the physiology of high-altitude flight and altitudinal migration in birds. Integrative and Comparative Biology 64: 1766-1779.
Williamson, JL, EB Linck, E Bautista, A Smiley, JA McGuire, R Dudley, and CC Witt. 2023. Hummingbird blood traits track oxygen availability across space and time. Ecology Letters 26(7): 1-14.
Linck, EB, JL Williamson, E Bautista, EJ Beckman, PM Benham, SG DuBay, LM Flores, CR Gadek, AB Johnson, MR Jones, J Nuñez-Zapata, A Quiñonez, CJ Schmitt, D Susanibar, J Tiravanti, T Valqui, K Verde-Guerra, NA Wright, T Valqui, JF Storz, and CC Witt. 2023. Blood variation implicates respiratory limits on elevational ranges of Andean birds. The American Naturalist 201(5): 741-754.
Williamson, JL and CC Witt. 2021. A lightweight backpack harness for tracking hummingbirds. Journal of Avian Biology 52 (9): e02802.
Williamson, JL and CC Witt. 2021. Elevational niche-shift migration: Why the degree of elevational change matters for the ecology, evolution, and physiology of migratory birds. Ornithology 138 (2): 1-26. McNew, SM, LN Barrow, JL Williamson, SC Galen, H Skeen, SG DuBay, AM Gaffney, AB Johnson, E Bautista, P Ordoñez, CJ Schmitt, A Smiley, T Valqui, JM Bates, SJ Hackett, and CC Witt. 2021. Contrasting drivers of diversity in hosts and parasites across the tropical Andes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(12): e2010714118.
Williamson, JL, CJ Wolf, LN Barrow, MJ Baumann, SC Galen, CJ Schmitt, D Schmitt, AS Winter, and CC Witt. 2019. Ecology, not distance, explains community composition in parasites of sky-island Audubon’s Warblers. International Journal for Parasitology 49(6): 437-448.
