Dr. Jen Moss

FACULTY AFFILIATE   |   Global Change Center

Biological Sciences

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jbmoss@vt.edu

Dr. Jen Moss is a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist. Research in her lab focuses on reproductive behaviors such as mating and parental care, and how these processes can inform demographic and evolutionary responses to climate change. To address these questions, she draws from a combination of laboratory and field approaches working primarily with local amphibians and reptiles. 

Current projects in the Moss lab revolve around the use of red-backed salamanders to experimentally interrogate links between climate, reproductive and mating dynamics, and ultimately selection on male and female traits. Plethodontid salamanders in Appalachia have complex and protracted annual reproductive cycles, and living in cool and montane environments means they spend a considerable portion of it underground. Our aim is to understand how changes in climate are affecting aspects of the reproductive cycle that are contingent on surface activity, on one hand (e.g., foraging, mating) and dormancy, on the other (e.g., sperm storage). By accounting for sex-specific reproductive strategies and outcomes, as well as how the sexes interact across the reproductive cycle, we hope our work will help improve climate forecasts for other vulnerable amphibians.   

Dr. Moss is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech. She completed her PhD (2019) at Mississippi State University and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Tasmania, University of Georgia, and University of Illinois before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech.