Search: Faculty directory, Integrative Biology

Anthony Barnosky studies how changes in the physical environment (such as climate change and mountain building) contribute to the evolution of mammal species and faunas at varying temporal and geographic scales. Field aspects of the work include collecting fossils from long stratigraphic sequences that can be well-dated by biostratigraphic, paleomagnetic, or radioisotopic techniques. Lab analyses utilize database and GIS systems to identify faunal changes through space and time; the faunal patterns are then compared with independently identified changes in the physical environment to test various evolutionary and biogeographic predictions.

The broad goal of Ellen Simms' research is to understand evolution in natural populations. She is especially interested in the evolutionary implications of ecological interactions between plants and other organisms, including herbivores, pathogens, and mutualists.

Mary Power's research interests center on river food webs. She has studied interactions among fish, birds, invertebrates, and algae in temperate and tropical rivers. She is particularly interested in how attributes of species affect food web structure and dynamics, and how strengths of these interactions change under different environmental regimes.

Zack Powell has worked on physical and biological processes in lakes, estuaries, and the ocean. All have been directed toward the question: How do physical processes, like mixing and turbulence, currents and circulation, or mass and energy transfer at the surface, affect the biological processes in planktonic ecosystems?

Craig Moritz's research centers on the use of molecular approaches to study ecology and evolution and addresses questions including; (1) the use of molecular markers to infer current and historical population processes at various spatial and temporal scales; (2) the effects of historical changes in habitat on current distributions and diversity of faunas, with particular reference to rainforest biotas; and (3) improving the use of molecular information in conservation biology and the development of strategies that recognize evolutionary processes.

Green plants, bryophytes, mosses, systematics, evolutionary biology, ecology, reproductive biology, development, phylogeny, phylogenetics, chloroplast DNA, comparative genomics, classification, species concepts

David Lindberg's systematic work features the Patellogastropoda, a basal group of gastropod molluscs that figure prominently in ecological studies of rocky shores around the world. They use phylogenetic hypotheses to understand adaptation and evolution in patellacean faunas around the world and through time. He also remains interested in the role of substrates in determining and augmenting community composition. Some effort in his lab is also directed at understanding the evolutionary history of California land snail taxa as well. He also investigate relationships amongst higher molluscan taxa including subclades within the Gastropoda, the "conchiferian" groups, and the phyletic position of the Mollusca on the Tree of Life.

Research in Todd Dawson's laboratory focuses on the interface between plants and their environment. The tools of physiological and evolutionary plant ecology and stable isotope biogeochemistry are currently being applied towards the study and interpretation of this interface.

Research in Todd Dawson's laboratory focuses on the interface between plants and their environment. The tools of physiological and evolutionary plant ecology and stable isotope biogeochemistry are currently being applied towards the study and interpretation of this interface.

Roy Caldwell's research interests lie in invertebrate behavior and ecology with much of my work centering on the behavioral ecology of stomatopod crustaceans, a group of tropical marine predators.