Pregnancy is unusually hard in humans. About 70% of women experience highly unpleasant nausea and vomiting in the first trimester, i.e. "morning sickness", which has recently been attributed to massive amounts of a fetal hormone called GDF15. Debates rage about whether pregnancy sickness is useful, to protect the fetus somehow, or merely a side effect of those high hormone levels/ This question matters because it determines whether we should feel comfortable treating nausea and vomiting in pregnancy! One way to answer this question is to turn to other great apes and other mammals. Here, the student will conduct a survey-based-study of zookeepers, veterinarians, and captive breeding program managers to determine whether other pregnant mammals experience appetite changes, nausea, and vomiting in pregnancy. The results will help inform our understanding of whether morning sickness is merely a side effect of unusually high GDF15 levels during pregnancy in humans

1. Design a retrospective and prospective survey for zookeepers, veterinarians, and captive breeding program managers across a phylogenetically diverse set of mammals.

2. Determine what symptoms other great apes, and other placental mammals, experience in pregnancy (nausea, vomiting, appetite changes)

3. Combine and analyze the data for a research paper

Survey design, quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis

R and Python both would be acceptable and are provided by the lab.

We support any conferences the student would like to attend.