Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

   Ecology and Evolutionary Biology address the consequences of natural selection for the interactions among organisms, such as competition, facilitation, predation, and parasitism, plus the interactions between organisms and their environment that influence their survival, reproduction, and distribution over the earth. Coexistence, speciation, phylogenetics, and biogeographic patterns are major topics of research.

   Research currently conducted in the Department is varied and in-depth. A few of our projects include:

• stability of grazing systems
• turtle population studies
• evolution of language
• parasite ecology
• sexual selection in fish and salamanders
• speciation in insects
• significance of sociality in birds and mammals
• evolutionary mechanisms