David H. Evans

personal site

Professor
Ph.D.  Stanford University, 1967

321 BAR
Box 118525
Gainesville, FL
32611-8525
Voice: (352) 392-1489
Fax: (352) 392-3704
devans@zoology.ufl.edu   

Research Interests

Comparative, environmental and evolutionary physiology: osmoregulation, especially of fishes. Epithelial transport and its hormonal control; the molecular biology, pharmacology, and physiology of vasoactive hormones (particularly those from the endothelium).

Students Currently Supervised

Donovan German (Ph. D.)
Research interests centers on biochemical adaptations of fishes that allow them to survive in diverse habitats and under different environmental conditions. For my dissertation I am focusing on biochemical specializations of the digestive tract in herbivorous fishes. Knowledge of the biochemical adaptations allowing herbivorous fishes to digest food (algae and plants) that is low in nitrogen, protein, and lipid, and encased in a largely indigestible cell wall is limited, especially when compared to the vast knowledge of digestion in terrestrial herbivores. By investigating assimilation efficiencies, nutrient transport, digestive enzyme activities, and metabolic utilization of specific nutrients, I plan to elucidate how a clade of herbivorous minnows, the stonerollers (g. Campostoma), are able to consume and use algae as their main dietary source.

Kelly Hyndman (Ph. D.)
Interested in the endothelin receptors and cell signaling in the killifish gill. Specifically I am trying to immunolocalize the two endothelin receptors, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, cyclooxygenase and prostaglandin E2 receptors in the gill. I am also trying to determine if endothelin stimulates nitric oxide and prostaglandin E2 production and the effects of this cascade on gill ion transport.

Justin Havird (MS)
Interested in the evolution of the genes coding for the enzymes (COX-1; COX-2) that synthesize prostaglandins in the chordates, especially the cephalochordates, urochordates, and fishes.

Representative Publications

Choe, K.P., Edwards, S.L, Claiborne, J.B., and Evans, D.H. 2007. The putative mechanism of Na+ absorption in euryhaline elasmobranchs exists in the gills of the stenohaline marine elasmobranch, Squalus acanthias. Comp. Biochem. Physiol, A 146: 155-162.

Hyndman, K.A., Choe, K.P., Havird, J.C., Rose, R.E., Piermarini, P.M., and Evans, D.H. 2006. Neuronal nitric oxide synthase in the gill of the killifish, Fundulus heteroclitus. Comp. Biochem. Physiol., B Biochem Mol Biol 144: 510-519.

Choe, K.P., Havird, J., Rose, R., Hyndman, K., Piermarini, P., and Evans, D.H. 2006. COX2 in a euryhaline teleost, Fundulus heteroclitus: primary sequence, distribution, localization, and potential funchtion in gills during salinity acclimation. J. Exp. Biol. 209: 1696-1708.

Choe, K.P., Kato, A., Hirose, S., Plata, C., Sindic, A., Romero, M.F., Claiborne, J.B., and Evans, D.H. 2005. NHE3 in an ancestral vertebrate: primary sequence, distribution, localization, and function in gills. Am. J. Physiol. 289: R1520-R1534.

Evans, D.H., Piermarini, P.M., and Choe, K.P. 2005. The multifunctional fish gill: Dominant site of gas exchange, osmoregulation, acid-base regulation, and excretion of nitrogenous waste. Physiol. Revs. 85: 97-177.

Evans, D.H., Rose, R.E., Roeser, J.M., and Stidham, J.D. 2004. NaCl transport across the opercular epithelium of the Fundulus heteroclitus is inhibited by an endothelin to nitric oxide, superoxide, and prostanoid signaling axis. Am. J. Physiol. 286: R560-R568.

Choe, K. P., Evans, D. H., O'Brien, S., Toop, T., and Edwards, S. 2004. Immunolocalization of Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase, carbonic anhydrase II, and vacuolar H⁺-ATPase in the gills of freshwater adult lampreys, Geotria australis. J. Exp. Zool. 301A: 654-665, 2004.