Dr. Julia M. York
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
I study how TRP ion channels evolve to detect temperature in ectotherms, particularly Arctic and Antarctic fishes, and what that means for animals living in the fastest-changing thermal environments on Earth.
How does thermosensation evolve? As thermal environments shift, how do sensory systems adapt? I investigate TRP channels, a family of ion channels that act as molecular thermosensors by turning temperature into electrical signals. I combine transcriptomics, genomics, bioinformatics, electrophysiology, fieldwork, and behavior to answer this across levels of organization, in both vertebrates and invertebrates.
Some areas of the Arctic Ocean are warming at up to seven times the global average, endangering key subsistence and commercial fisheries. I study the evolution of TRP channel sequences, expression, and structures in thermosensory tissues across Arctic codfishes that differ in their preferred thermal environments.
Funded by an NSF Office of Polar Programs postdoctoral research fellowship.
Notothenioids make up most of the fish fauna around Antarctica, where water has stayed between -1.9 and +4 °C for millions of years. I am investigating how TRP channels evolved to sense these temperatures, and comparing species that have secondarily adapted to temperate environments.
Funded by the Fulbright Commission; work at the Universidad Austral de Chile and in the Chilean Antarctic.
Atta texana is the most northerly leaf-cutter ant. Its range is limited not by the ants’ own tolerance, but by the cold sensitivity of the fungus they farm. What is the molecular basis of the ants’ sensitivity to the fungus’s narrow optimal temperature range, and how has it changed as they expanded north?
* indicates equal contribution.
See the full list on Google Scholar.
I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in the lab of Dr. Chris Cheng. I received my PhD in 2022 from the University of Texas at Austin (Dr. Harold Zakon), and my MSc in 2016 from the University of British Columbia (Drs. Bill Milsom and Doug Altshuler), where I was also an undergraduate.
I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where I helped my dad trap arctic ground squirrels and catch wood frogs. Now I live in Urbana, Illinois, with my husband, twins, and a good dog named Pepper. I use she/her pronouns.
Questions about any of this work? Can’t access a paper? Email me.
Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior
School of Integrative Biology
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
505 S Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801