{"id":598,"date":"2023-11-06T15:43:31","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T23:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/?page_id=598"},"modified":"2025-09-10T11:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T18:47:44","slug":"fox-projects","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/fox-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox projects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--featured-block \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--featured-block\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"text-image-container\">\n    <div class=\"text-container\">\n\n      \n      \n                  \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  <p>With funding from the Offield Family Foundation, the Edmands Lab is collaborating with <a href=\"https:\/\/nhm.org\/person\/wang-xiaoming\">Xiaoming Wang&#8217;s lab<\/a> at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum to study genetics and evolution of the Channel Island Fox. Island foxes descended from mainland gray foxes, and are approximately one-third smaller. There are six distinct subspecies of the island fox and several have experienced severe population crashes followed by partial demographic recoveries. Dissertation work by <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/graduate-students\/\">Nicole Adams<\/a> assessed the scat microbiome in foxes from each island, providing a metric of fox health and a baseline for future non-invasive monitoring\u00a0 (<a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/publications\/\">Adams et al. 2021<\/a>). In addition, Nicole&#8217;s work showed that despite recent recoveries in fox population numbers, genomic variation on some islands has declined since the bottlenecks, potentially limiting the foxes&#8217; ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions (<a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/publications\/\">Adams &amp; Edmands 2023<\/a>). <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/current-lab-members\/\">Kimberly Schoenberger<\/a> is also doing her dissertation on island foxes,\u00a0 focusing on molecular and morphological adaptations. Her work includes studies of brain size evolution <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0328893\">(Schoenberger et al. 2025<\/a>), bone histology and transcriptomics of disease susceptibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n      \n          <\/div>\n\n          <div class=\"image-container\">\n            \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/358\/2023\/11\/Fox-001-copy-768x768.jpg\"\n          data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/358\/2023\/11\/Fox-001-copy-1280x1280.jpg 1280w,https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/358\/2023\/11\/Fox-001-copy-768x768.jpg 768w\"          data-sizes=\"(min-width:1024px) 50vw, (min-width:768px) 100vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  role=\"none\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    \n  <\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-598","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Fox projects - The Edmands Lab: Population &amp; Conservation Genetics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/fox-projects\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fox projects - The Edmands Lab: Population &amp; Conservation Genetics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/fox-projects\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Edmands Lab: Population &amp; Conservation Genetics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-10T18:47:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/fox-projects\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/edmands\/fox-projects\/\",\"name\":\"Fox projects - The Edmands Lab: Population &amp; 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