Science Café

The Most Informative Wildlife Disease You've Never Heard Of

Although every animal gets infected at some point, no two individuals, populations, or species respond in precisely the same way. My group explores the consequences of this variation for the spread and evolution of pathogens by focusing on a widespread songbird, the house finch, and its history with a novel, bacterial pathogen, Mycoplasma gallistepticum. This pathogen jumped out of domestic poultry into wild birds in the early 1990s and rapidly spread across North America, providing a unique opportunity to study both host and pathogen across space and time. This Science Café highlights generalizable insights into host-pathogen evolution that we have gleaned from studying this system in over 30yrs.

Dr. Jim Adelman is an associate professor in the Biological Sciences department at the University of Memphis. His research focuses on the ecology of infectious diseases, particularly in birds, and includes lab, field, and theory components. He relishes any chance to get outside, especially if mountains are involved. 

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Overton Park Conservancy is the nonprofit organization that has been caring for Memphis’s central green space since 2012. With the generous support of our community, we work each day to make the park a beautiful and welcoming place for all Memphians, as well as a valuable source of urban habitat for wildlife.

The Conservancy must raise roughly 90% of our budget each year from people like you who care about the many things Overton Park has to offer. A gift of any amount helps us maintain and improve the park.