Laboratory Members
Editor's note: Rachel successfully defended her thesis, "Re-emergence
of ancestral plasticity and the loss of a rare limnetic phenotype
in an Alaskan population of threespine stickleback" this spring
and is scheduled to walk in commencement ceremonies May 18.
Rachel Chock, 5th-year Master's
I am in the 5th year M.A. program in Biology, and received my B.A. in environmental science/conservation biology from Clark in May 2007. I joined the Foster-Baker Laboratory during my junior year when I met with Susan Foster to talk about my interest in adding more biology classes to my environmental science major, and she introduced me to the (still unofficial at the time) conservation biology track and I shifted my whole undergraduate career. My early work in the laboratory resulted in co-authorship on a paper presented by Dr. Foster at the 5th International Stickleback Symposium in Anchorage Alaska in 2006.
Master's Research: My primary interests lie in the areas of conservation biology and animal behavior. I am currently looking at the effects of housing development on water chemistry and the subsequent shift in stickleback feeding, mating, and anti-predator behavior in Lynne Lake, 
Alaska. Changes in productivity appear to be altering foraging regimes in this unusual limnetic population in a direction that could result in contemporary evolution to a form that is behaviorally benthic, rather than limnetic. This would be a serious regional loss of diversity as the Lynne Lake population is the only behavioral limnetic identified in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska to date. I am also interested in comparing the behavior of Lynne Lake fish to that of other populations in the region, and to that of limnetic populations in British Columbia to better understand the behavioral characteristics of these two important behavioral ecotypes. I expect this research to result in one publication in a conservation journal, and one devoted to the comparative study of behavior.
Outside the laboratory: I am originally from Redwood City, California. I love to travel and my work with stickleback took me to British Columbia and Alaska this past summer where I spent many cold hours floating around in the lakes and watching the fish. I got to do other fun things like climb on a glacier, meet some reindeer, and commandeer a canoe. As an undergrad I was very involved with the Equestrian team and intramural sports (4 years of soccer championships!), and participated in Clarkâs Model United Nations, the outing club, and ballroom dancing. I studied abroad in England at the University of East Anglia the spring semester of my junior year.
Publication: Baker, J.A., R. Y. Chock, R. Elsemore, M. A. Wund, S. A. Foster (In press). Predation History and Vulnerability: Conservation of Stickleback Populations.
Poster presentation: The 44th Annual Meeting of the Animal Behavior Society, July 2007. Anthropogenic change and potential loss of a rare behavioral phenotype without extinction.
Awards:
Carlson Scholar, Clark University 2003-2007
Charles Henry Turner Award, Animal Behavior Society, 2007