“Dan Sullivan was a man of great faith and great intellect,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“He was the embodiment of the Jesuit ideal, expressing his faith through scientific research and teaching. He was also a man of great practical wisdom and a warm and thoughtful colleague. Today the Fordham family mourns with Dan’s friends and loved ones. He will be sorely missed.”

A native of Rosedale, Queens, Father Sullivan joined the ROTC as an undergraduate, and was one of the founders of the Fordham company of the Pershing Rifles Military Society. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force Reserves in 1950. He entered into the Society of Jesus three months after his graduation in 1950; he was ordained in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1961 and pronounced his final vows in 1979 at Rose Hill.

Pairing Faith and Science

From the very beginning, Father Sullivan seamlessly paired a love of science with his religious calling. As a seminarian, he earned a master’s degree in biology at Fordham in 1958 before heading to the State University of Innsbruck in Austria for five years of studies under the tutelage of esteemed theologians Karl Rahner, S.J., and Josef Jungmann, S.J.

Before he returned to New York, Father Sullivan earned a doctorate of philosophy in entomology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969. There, he trained in the science of biological control, in which beneficial insects are enlisted to attack and control insect pests that destroy agricultural crops. He joined the Fordham faculty that year as an assistant professor, then went on to become a full professor in 1984.

Among the major works he published were “Aphids” in Encyclopedia of Entomology (Kluwer Academic Publishing, 2004), “Influence of Host Plant Resistance on Activity and Abundance of Natural Enemies” in Biological Control of Insects (Phoenix Publishing, 2003), and “Hyperparasitism” in Encyclopedia of Insects (Academic Press/Elsevier Science, 2003).

Father Sullivan lent a great deal of his talents to helping the international scientific community. In 1984, he traveled to Nigeria on a Fulbright fellowship to join a team doing research on the cassava mealybug; in 1988, he was a visiting scientist in at the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia. He was also the visiting scientist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1999 and again in 2004. He also had the honor of serving as President of the New York Entomological Society and President of the Fordham Chapter of Sigma Xi -the Scientific Research Honor Society.

In a Fordham News podcast last year, Father Sullivan said his Jesuit superiors actively encouraged him to travel and conduct research.

“Non-Catholics sometimes think there’s a contradiction between belief in God and science. It’s not that way at all. It complements it, in fact. I look back on some of the great scientists. Galileo was a Catholic. And Darwin, although not a Catholic, was a religious man,” he said. “And then of course one of the great geneticists, who started genetics, was Gregor Mendel, who was an Augustinian priest.”

An Invaluable Source of Knowledge

After retiring in 2006, Father Sullivan stayed on the faculty, living at Kohlmann Hall, and advising junior and senior biology students. At that time, he began sharing office space on the fourth floor of Larkin Hall with Craig Frank, Ph.D., a professor of mammalian ecological physiology and biochemistry, who’d joined the faculty in 1994.

Frank said that the letters of recommendation that Father Sullivan wrote enabled countless students to advance to medical school and graduate programs, and noted that many remained in contact with him after graduation.

In the Fordham News podcast, Father Sullivan shared some of the advice he’d dispensed to students over the years.

“I tell my students that the really great scholars in this world are not gonna give you a hard time. It’s the second-raters that do that,” he said.

Frank said that their office hours only overlapped once a week, but they developed a rapport over the years such that, several years ago, someone taped a picture of The Muppets characters Waldorf and Statler on their door. It was a testament to Father Sullivan’s good humor that he let it stay up, Frank said.

Though the biology department existed before Father Sullivan taught there, Frank said his contributions were numerous and influential.

“He was one of the founding fathers of the biology department. He was a very good friend, very pleasant to talk to, and his wit never diminished with age,” he said.

“He was an invaluable source of knowledge, and I viewed him very much as a mentor, even as recently as last week. I would just love sitting in our office during our office hours together, and just talking with him about university life. We didn’t always agree on everything, but it was always a joy talking to him.”

An Unmistakable Fidelity to Fordham

Father Sullivan’s fidelity to the biology department and the University was unmistakable. Every year, the annual newsletter detailing recent events of the department had his byline on it. This year, he penned the paper Historical Profile of the Biology Faculty: Past and Present. He also delivered the invocation and benediction at Fordham’s ROTC’s commissioning ceremony each May. Captain Dan Millican, executive officer and assistant professor of military science in the ROTC program, noted that Father Sullivan attended a 70th anniversary celebration of the Pershing Rifles just two weeks ago at West Point.

“He was a great supporter, and a great influence among the cadets,” he said.

“He could always drive the tone of the room to be more productive, and drive cadets toward service.”

In 2009, Fordham honored Father Sullivan with a Bene Merenti Medal for 40 years of service, citing his career as one that “reflects Ignatius Loyola’s international vision for Jesuits.” Jason Munshi-South, Ph.D., an associate professor of biological sciences, said he was the most dedicated attendee at the department’s annual colloquium.

“I can’t imagine these seminars without his presence near the front every week. He was always able to make a personal connection with the seminar speaker given his varied travels around the world as a Jesuit and biologist,” he said.

Patricio Meneses, Ph.D., the chair of the biology department, echoed the sentiment.

“Father Sullivan made me and every new faculty member feel at home from the first day,” he said.

“He was a true scholar, a great colleague, and a great friend.”

A wake for Father Sullivan will be held Monday, Nov. 25, from 3 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Murray-Weigel Hall Chapel, Rose Hill Campus.

A Mass of Christian Burial will take place Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 11:30 a.m. at the Murray-Weigel Hall Chapel, Rose Hill Campus.

Notes of condolence may be sent to a cousin, Kevin Giuliano, 67 Sandburg Place, Pine Bush, NY  12566.

Craig Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of biology, has received a $293,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to undertake a three-and-a-half-year project on the hibernation patterns of ground squirrels living at high altitudes.

The study is meant to determine the role of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the over-winter survival rate of golden-mantled ground squirrels. The squirrels, which live at an elevation of approximately 13,000 feet in California’s White Mountains, are one of 75 species of mammals that hibernate to survive the winter.

Frank said that short-term reductions in dietary PUFAs can strongly influence the squirrels’ hibernation ability and, thus, affect the species’ over-winter survival. Generally, the more PUFAs in a golden-mantled squirrel’s body, the better it hibernates. A corresponding field study will measure the relationship between elevation, temperature and the levels of PUFA content of food plants. PUFAs in plants have been shown to decrease with climate warming, Frank said.

“This project will provide new insights into the physiological ecology of mammalian hibernation,” said Frank, a mammalian ecologist who has been studying ground squirrels for 20 years.

“Ecosystems on the tops of the mountains are really temperature dependent,” he explained. “Animals live there because the high altitude offers their ideal habitat. If that climate changes, the animals become trapped between a peak that is warming, and the base of the mountain that is already too warm; their [habitat]band in between gets narrower and narrower as climate change continues.”

Frank and his team of researchers plan to fit approximately 120 squirrels living at four sites in the mountains with radio telemetry collars to measure their body temperatures. The scientists will measure each squirrel’s PUFA level before releasing it.

Readings from the collars will be taken by an automated radio receiver system every one to two hours from late August until mid-June, over three consecutive years. Since an animal’s body temperature during hibernation drops to nearly the same temperature as its surroundings, that data will show when and for how long the animals experience torpor.

Frank also has been researching hibernation patterns of the free-ranging eastern chipmunk at Fordham’s Louis Calder Center since 2000. His research documenting the correlation between climate change and hibernating patterns among the chipmunks was used in applying for the latest NSF grant, his fourth and largest.

The ultimate goal of the study is to help scientists develop a mathematical model to accurately predict the effects of climate warming on hibernators.

“We are trying to elucidate the basic principles that govern the hibernation of all mammals, and how these [principles]respond to the effects of climate change,” Frank said.

A biologist at the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station has uncovered new information about how climate change may affect the hibernation patterns and survival of mammals.

Craig Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and a mammalian ecologist, has been examining the hibernation patterns of free-ranging eastern chipmunks since 2000. His data shows that exceptionally high winter temperatures correlate positively with reduced hibernation, resulting in a lower winter survival rate for these animals.

Following a different set of free-ranging chipmunks each year, Frank used radio telemetry collars to measure their body temperatures. Readings from these collars were taken by an automated radio receiver system every three hours from Nov. 1 through April 30—the eastern chipmunk’s usual hibernation season. The readings enabled Frank to measure when, and for how long, each animal hibernated, since an animal’s body temperature during hibernation drops to nearly the same temperature as its surroundings.

“Very little is known about how climate changes influence mammalian communities, but investigations over the past five years have suggested that species that use hibernation to survive the winter may be particularly sensitive to it,” Frank said. “We think climate change may be affecting their torpor.”

Data showed that the chipmunks followed normal hibernation patterns from fall 2003 through spring 2006, averaging an 87 percent survival rate through the winter.

But the winter of 2006-2007 was exceptionally warm. In fact, November and December 2006 were the warmest winter months on record in New York state, according to the National Climactic Data Center (NCDC). During that 2007 winter, only 11 percent of the chipmunks (one out of nine) entered hibernation, whereas during previous winters all chipmunks examined had hibernated.

After the winter period ended, Frank recaptured only the one chipmunk that had hibernated. The rest, he said, were never found and their collars emitted only a low, steady temperature which was the same as soil temperature.

In addition, data indicated that the surviving chipmunk stopped hibernation at the end of March, which Frank said is early. “He spent less time hibernating than we have seen in previous years,” Frank said. “But he still survived.”

Frank said he developed the idea for this research largely by accident. In 2003 he received a National Science Foundation grant to develop a 24-hour automated radio telemetry system that would measure the body temperature of small free-ranging mammals for other experiments. Once he designed a prototype system, he tested it on eastern chipmunks because they are a locally abundant hibernating species.

The eastern chipmunk typically uses a combination of hibernation and food hoarding to survive through the winter, Frank said. They hibernate in their underground nests, waking up occasionally to consume some of the stored food.

If such environmental changes continue, Frank said, the larger question becomes how the 75 species of mammals that depend on hibernation for survival, including the eastern chipmunk, will adapt.

“We may see an evolution in hibernation behavior toward a strategy that is less sensitive to the climate shift,” said Frank, who recently presented his research findings at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Last October, Frank and his assistants radio collared more chipmunks for monitoring throughout this 2007-2008 winter season. According to the NCDC, that month was the warmest October in New York state since 1895.

“The jury is still out on the rest of the winter,” Frank said. “But already in January we’ve hit 65 degrees.”

– Janet Sassi

Craig Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and a mammalian ecologist, has been examining the hibernation patterns of free-ranging eastern chipmunks since 2000. His data shows that exceptionally high winter temperatures correlate positively with reduced hibernation, resulting in a lower winter survival rate for these animals.

Following a different set of free-ranging chipmunks each year, Frank used radio telemetry collars to measure their body temperatures. Readings from these collars were taken by an automated radio receiver system every three hours from Nov. 1 through April 30—the eastern chipmunk’s usual hibernation season. The readings enabled Frank to measure when, and for how long, each animal hibernated since an animal’s body temperature during hibernation drops to nearly the same temperature as its surroundings.

“Very little is known about how climate changes influence mammalian communities, but investigations over the past five years have suggested that species that use hibernation to survive the winter may be particularly sensitive to it,” Frank said. “We think climate change may be affecting their torpor.”

Data showed that the chipmunks followed normal hibernation patterns from fall 2003 through spring 2006, averaging an 87 percent survival rate through the winter.

But the winter of 2006-2007 was exceptionally warm. In fact, November and December 2006 were the warmest winter months on record in New York state, according to the National Climactic Data Center (NCDC). During that 2007 winter, only 11 percent of the chipmunks (one out of nine) entered hibernation, whereas during previous winters all chipmunks examined had hibernated.

After the winter period ended, Frank recaptured only the one chipmunk that had hibernated. The rest, he said, were never found and their collars emitted only a low steady temperature which was the same as soil temperature.

If such environmental changes continue, Frank said, the larger question becomes how the 75 species of mammals that depend on hibernation for survival, including the eastern chipmunk, will adapt. “We may see an evolution in hibernation behavior toward a strategy that is less sensitive to the climate shift,” said Frank, who recently presented his research findings at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.