About

Terrie M Williams is a faculty member in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Cruz. Her research addresses how information in DNA is packaged, read, and interpreted in living cells, as well as how cells are built, regenerated, and work together to comprise an organism. Her work is part of the larger scientific enterprise focused on understanding the molecular and cellular basis of life, with broad implications for human health and environmental applications. The department, recognized as a leader in this field, collaborates across multiple disciplines including chemistry, physics, biomolecular engineering, microbiology, and environmental toxicology, reflecting a comprehensive approach to biomedical research.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Biology
• Oceanography
• Geography
• Geology
• Psychology
• Physical geography
• Neuroscience

Selected publications

• A new non-invasive attachment technique to measure heat flux in cetaceans

  Research Square · 2026-02-15

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Integrating animal tracking and trait data to facilitate global ecological discoveries

  Journal of Experimental Biology · 2025-02-15 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Understanding animal movement is at the core of ecology, evolution and conservation science. Big data approaches for animal tracking have facilitated impactful synthesis research on spatial biology and behavior in ecologically important and human-impacted regions. Similarly, databases of animal traits (e.g. body size, limb length, locomotion method, lifespan) have been used for a wide range of comparative questions, with emerging data being shared at the level of individuals and populations. Here, we argue that the proliferation of both types of publicly available data creates exciting opportunities to unlock new avenues of research, such as spatial planning and ecological forecasting. We assessed the feasibility of combining animal tracking and trait databases to develop and test hypotheses across geographic, temporal and biological allometric scales. We identified multiple research questions addressing performance and distribution constraints that could be answered by integrating trait and tracking data. For example, how do physiological (e.g. metabolic rates) and biomechanical traits (e.g. limb length, locomotion form) influence migration distances? We illustrate the potential of our framework with three case studies that effectively integrate trait and tracking data for comparative research. An important challenge ahead is the lack of taxonomic and spatial overlap in trait and tracking databases. We identify critical next steps for future integration of tracking and trait databases, with the most impactful being open and interlinked individual-level data. Coordinated efforts to combine trait and tracking databases will accelerate global ecological and evolutionary insights and inform conservation and management decisions in our changing world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• In Memoriam: Jim Estes

  Aquatic Mammals · 2025-11-12

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• James A. Estes: An ecologist’s quest to understand nature

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-10-29

  articleOpen access

  For five decades, Jim A. Estes studied sea otters in the Aleutian archipelago of Alaska, discovering how otters structured entire communities. By consuming sea urchins, otters released kelp from herbivory, kelp beds flourished, and kelps sheltered a diversity of fishes, and invertebrates. When otters were extirpated by paleohumans, modern humans, or killer whales, urchins proliferated, reduced kelp forests to "urchin barrens," and species-rich assemblages of fishes and invertebrates were lost. These losses affected seals, eagles, sea gulls, fishes, and sea stars that depended on these prey as well as adjacent habitats that had been nourished by exported kelp production. Jim's research became the poster child for keystone species, trophic cascades, and the critical role of predators in structuring ecosystems. Similar discoveries followed in freshwaters, forests, and grasslands.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Racing extinction: Can science act fast enough to save large, endangered mammals?

  Science · 2024-02-01 · 1 citations

  editorial1st authorCorresponding

  How far can a polar bear swim? The answer to that one question could have altered the course of the global warming movement and tempered current public distrust in science and scientists . As is the case for many large, fierce mammals, many aspects of the basic biology that dictate what polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) need to survive in a changing world remain a mystery. We don’t know the limitations of the bear’s thermoregulatory or swimming capabilities in Arctic waters. Nor do we know whether a terrestrial diet of berries and scavenging is able to sustain a mother bear throughout pregnancy and cub rearing should the continued deterioration of sea ice force them to remain on land. At a time when understanding animal capacities and resiliency in the face of human perturbation is crucial to species survival, science has been unable to keep pace with emerging environmental threats.

  PublisherDOI

• Conservation energetics of beluga whales: using resting and swimming metabolism to understand threats to an endangered population

  Journal of Experimental Biology · 2024-03-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The balance between energetic costs and acquisition in free-ranging species is essential for survival, and provides important insights regarding the physiological impact of anthropogenic disturbances on wild animals. For marine mammals such as beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), the first step in modeling this bioenergetic balance requires an examination of resting and active metabolic demands. Here, we used open-flow respirometry to measure oxygen consumption during surface rest and submerged swimming by trained beluga whales, and compared these measurements with those of a commonly studied odontocete, the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). Both resting metabolic rate (3012±126.0 kJ h-1) and total cost of transport (1.4±0.1 J kg-1 m-1) of beluga whales were consistent with predicted values for moderately sized marine mammals in temperate to cold-water environments, including dolphins measured in the present study. By coupling the rate of oxygen consumption during submerged swimming with locomotor metrics from animal-borne accelerometer tags, we developed predictive relationships for assessing energetic costs from swim speed, stroke rate and partial dynamic acceleration. Combining these energetic data with calculated aerobic dive limits for beluga whales (8.8 min), we found that high-speed responses to disturbance markedly reduce the whale's capacity for prolonged submergence, pushing the cetaceans to costly anaerobic performances that require prolonged recovery periods. Together, these species-specific energetic measurements for beluga whales provide two important metrics, gait-related locomotor costs and aerobic capacity limits, for identifying relative levels of physiological vulnerability to anthropogenic disturbances that have become increasingly pervasive in their Arctic habitats.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Energetic costs of rest and locomotion in dolphins

  Elsevier eBooks · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Integrating animal tracking and trait data to facilitate global ecological discoveries

  2024-05-06 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Understanding animal movement is at the core of ecology, evolution, and conservation science. Big data approaches for animal tracking have facilitated impactful synthesis research on spatial biology and behavior in ecologically important and human-impacted regions. Similarly, databases of animal traits (e.g., body size, limb length, locomotion method, lifespan) have been used for a wide range of comparative questions, with emerging data being shared at the levels of individuals and populations. Here, we argue that the proliferation of both types of publicly available data creates exciting opportunities to unlock new avenues of research, such as spatial planning and ecological forecasting, across a diverse range of species. We assessed the feasibility of combining animal tracking and trait databases to develop and test hypotheses across geographic, temporal, and biological allometric scales. We identified multiple research questions addressing performance and distribution constraints that could be answered by integrating trait and tracking data. For example, how do physiological (e.g., metabolic rates) and biomechanical traits (e.g., limb length, locomotion form) influence migration distances? How does habitat type influence movement metrics such as speed and energetic cost? We illustrate the potential of our framework with three case studies that effectively integrate trait and tracking data for comparative research. An important challenge ahead is the lack of taxonomic and spatial overlap in trait and tracking databases. We identify critical next steps for future integration of tracking and trait databases, with the most impactful being open and interlinked individual-level data. Coordinated efforts to combine trait and tracking databases will accelerate global ecological and evolutionary insights and inform conservation and management decisions in our changing world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Contributors

  Elsevier eBooks · 2024-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Selected and shared hematological responses to apnea in elite human free divers and northern elephant seals (<i>Mirounga angustirostris</i>)

  American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 2024-05-20 · 1 citations

  article

  This study uses similar methods and protocols in elite human free divers and northern elephant seals. Using highly conditioned divers (elite free-diving humans) and highly adapted divers (northern elephant seals), we explored which hematological traits are fundamentally mammalian and which may have been selected for. We found differences in P 50 , which may be due to different physiological environments between species, while elevated pH buffering and carbon monoxide levels might have been selected for in seals.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Hunting in Darkness: Behavioral and Energetic Strategies of Weddell Seals in Winter

  NSF · $315k · 2008–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Randall W. Davis

  Texas A&M University at Galveston

  36 shared

• James A. Estes

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  32 shared

• Daniel F. Doak

  University of Colorado System

  30 shared

• Dawn P. Noren

  California Academy of Sciences

  27 shared

• Daniel P. Costa

  Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation

  24 shared

• Marla M. Holt

  NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Northwest Fisheries Science Center

  22 shared

• Lee A. Fuiman

  The University of Texas at Austin

  21 shared

• Alan M. Springer

  University of Alaska Fairbanks

  20 shared

Labs

• Terrie M Williams LabPI