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Assistant Professor;
Ph.D., Duke University, 1997

Research and Professional Interests:

I am a population biologist interested in the ecology and evolution of plant-insect interactions. My primary focus is on how genotypic and phenotypic variation among individuals affects the long-term spatial and temporal dynamics of populations. I work on interactions between plants and their insect herbivores because plants and insects are amenable to experimentation and play important roles in both natural and agricultural communities. Studying the ecology of plant-insect systems allows me to focus on important basic research questions while also generating information that can be applied to the practical problems of developing more sustainable agriculture. Because the questions that I ask span levels of organization from characteristics of individuals to populations, and encompass both long and short time frames, I use a combination of greenhouse and field experiments with mathematical modeling in my research. My current projects include work on:

1. The influence of genetic variance in quality within plant populations on herbivore dynamics and spatial distributions (using a native wild strawberry and specialist aphid on the coast of California)

2. The effect of induced resistance on spatial distributions of herbivores and plant damage (experiments with soybeans/Mexican bean beetles and tomatoes/tomato herbivores)

3. Effects of disturbance on the source-sink dynamics and pollination of a rare endemic plant (Mimulus angustatus, Napa county, CA)

4. Associations between aphid population growth rates and carrying capacities across genotypes of wild strawberry.

Underwood, N. 1998. The timing of induced resistance and induced susceptibility in the soybean-Mexican bean beetle system. Oecologia 114: 376-381.

Underwood, N. 1999. The interaction between induced plant resistance and herbivore population dynamics. Pages 211-229 in Induced Plant Defenses against Pathogens and Herbivores: Biochemistry, Ecology, and Agriculture. A. A. Agrawal, S. Tuzun, and E. Bent, eds. American Phytopathological Society Press, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Underwood, N. 1999. The influence of plant and herbivore characteristics on the interaction between induced resistance and herbivore population dynamics. American Naturalist 153: 282-294.

Underwood, N., and M. D. Rausher. 2000. The effects of host-plant genotype on herbivore population dynamics in a model system. Ecology 81: 1565-1576.

Underwood, N. 2000. Density dependence in induced plant resistance to herbivore damage: threshold, strength and genetic variation. Oikos 89: 295-300.

Underwood, N., W. F. Morris, J. R. Lockwood, and K. Gross. 2000. Induced resistance to Mexican bean beetles in soybean: variation among genotypes and lack of correlation with constitutive resistance. Oecologia 122: 83-89.

Postdoctoral Associates:

Hines, Jessica E.
Miller, Thomas E. X.

Graduate Students:

Buchanan, Amanda L
Grinath, Joshua
Kim, Tania
McNutt, David W.

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