Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Kayla Buhler is a Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health Postdoctoral Fellow focused on developing biomarkers for allostatic load in polar bears. This information can be used to quantify the impacts of environmental change on their health, with the goal of improving conservation prospects for the species. Her primary faculty mentor is Cornell’s Dr. Raina Plowright.

Polar bears are among the most visible symbols of climate change, facing increasing nutritional, energetic, and physiological stress as sea ice diminishes. These long-term changes pose a significant threat to the species’ health, reproductive success, and survival. Kayla’s fellowship project will begin by identifying key biomarkers in a stable population of brown bears before expanding to polar bear populations across the Arctic. She will track how stress responses are impacted by changes in environmental conditions, such as sea ice extent and seasonal temperatures.

By creating a standardized method to measure chronic stress in bear populations, her work will help identify subpopulations at greater risk of infectious diseases and/or reduced fitness, providing policymakers, Indigenous communities, and governments with information that could help guide potential management decisions. Sampling protocols will be developed in partnership with Indigenous communities across North America to provide opportunities for standardized stress measurements across the polar bears’ circumpolar range.