Research

My research focuses on the evolution and development of bizarre, or extreme morphologies in insects. Beetles of the family Scarabaeidae exhibit extraordinary variation in male morphology. Males in many species have "horns", and these horns vary interspecifically in size and shape, as well as in the location on the animal from which they extend (e.g. some species have horns on the head, others have horns on the thorax). Research in my lab combines the tools and perspectives of behavioral ecology, quantitative genetics, evolutionary biology, phylogenetics and developmental biology to study beetle horn evolution. This explicitly integrative and multidisciplinary approach provides fresh insight to studies of sexual selection, and behavioral and morphological diversity. Graduate students in this lab often develop their own systems, and current student research addresses a breadth of topics revolving around sexual selection, behavior, genetics (direct and indirect) and evolution (see ‘People’).

Specific projects include:

1. Sexual Selection and the evolution of exaggerated morphologies in insects (evolutionary radiation; diversity; animal behavior; alternative reproductive tactics; morphological evolution)

2. Integrative Developmental Biology of insects (mechanisms responsible for nutrient-dependent phenotypic plasticity, allometry, polyphenism, and sexual dimorphism)

3. Evolutionary Developmental Biology and the origin and adaptive evolution of complex traits (using insights from development to improve our resolution of historical patterns of evolution; candidate pathways and genes involved with the development and evolution of beetle horns).

4. Tradeoffs associated with production of beetle horns

5. Evolutionary significance of female horns

6. Mystery of the Scarabs resolved? Starting to put the pieces together…