My research can be broadly described as evolutionary macrophysiology.  I am interested in describing and understanding the causes and consequences of broad-scale variation in the physiology of animals.  My research encompasses a range of spatial scales from global (e.g. metabolism of birds and gas exchange in insects), to intermediate (e.g. energy expenditure of cormorants that roam throughout Greenland), and local (e.g. visual function in fish from creeks that vary in tannin content and water colour). 

Having left the Centre for Ornithology to return to Australia and establish a Macrophysiology group in 2007, my research now encompasses three main themes: the evolution of periodic ventilation in insects, macrophysiological and allometric variation in the energy expenditure of animals, and visual ecophysiology of fish and piscivorous birds. Within these themes I maintain a number of active and rewarding collaborations with members of the Centre for Ornithology, including investigations of vision and energetics of cormorants (Martin, Butler, Grémillet, Halsey), the impact of biologgers on animals (Portugal, Green, Halsey, Cassey), and the influence of climate and life history on the energetics of breeding birds (Cassey, Blackburn).

White, C.R., Day, N. Butler, P.J. and Martin, G.R. (2007) Vision and foraging in cormorants: more like herons that hawks. PloS ONE. 2: e639. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000639

White, C.R., Blackburn, T.M., Terblanche, J.S., Marais, E., Gibernau, M., Chown, S.L. (2007) Evolutionary responses of discontinuous gas exchange in insects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. 104: 8357-8361

White, C.R., Blackburn, T.M., Martin, G.R., and Butler, P.J. (2007) Basal metabolic rate of birds is associated with environmental temperature and precipitation, not primary productivity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 274: 287-293.

White, C.R. and Seymour, R.S. (2003) Mammalian basal metabolic rate is proportional to body mass2/3. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 100: 4046-4049.