Room: 4004
King
Mailcode: 4004
My research investigates cooperative behavior, a complex social interaction that can occur between individuals within a single group or between multiple social groups. My interests span across different systems and environments as I try to understand how individuals process complex information from their social and physical environment to form cooperative groups, whether some individuals differ in their propensity to cooperate and degree of cooperative behavior, and how cooperative groups can be beneficial or costly in different situations. Dissertation Research I am currently studying cooperative breeding behavior in the Brown-headed Nuthatch (Sitta pusilla). In cooperative breeding systems, young individuals often forgo their own reproduction and assist other breeders raise offspring. Brown-head nuthatches are facultative cooperative breeders, meaning not all breeding groups have helpers and not all young males become helpers. This study system is ideal for testing whether individual variation in the propensity to cooperate occurs, how proximate mechanisms can maintain individual variation in cooperation, and how this influences this facultative cooperative breeding system. My dissertation research investigates within-individual consistency and interindividual variation in the propensity to cooperate and what proximate mechanisms maintain this variation within a population.
Room: 4079
King
Mailcode: 4295
I study sponges and their associated mesofauna to examine the ecology and evolution of mutualisms. I am currently exploring how habitat and sponge host influence the diversity and abundance of associated symbionts using field manipulations in the Florida Keys and Panama.
Room: 241
Biomedical Research Facility
Mailcode: 4340
I am interested in the physiological, ecological, and behavioral causes and consequences of dispersal into an ecologically marginal habitat. In particular, I am curious about how those factors may impact a species' ability to successfully colonize new territory.
Room: 241
Biomedical Research Facility
Mailcode: 4340
My research focuses on the ecological costs of predation risk and how the long-term effect of non-lethal predation influences reproduction, behavior and response of the molecular stress network. I am interested in how animals may or may not acclimate to predators over time and how natural selection may modify endocrine/behavioral responses to stress.
Room: 2024
King
Mailcode: 4295
I am interested in many aspects of the ecology of marine fishes. My dissertation research focuses on community ecology of six species of deepwater sharks, particularly on differences in trophic ecology and competition based on taxonomy and depth habitat. I am also studying the effect of trophic ecology on toxicology by studying methylmercury contamination in shark muscle tissue.
Room: 4079
KING
I am broadly interested in species interactions and distribution patterns. Particularly I'm interested in seeing how species distribution patterns have changed over time, what factors may be behind species distribution and abundance shifts, and how these affect tightly linked ecological interactions. My project address these interests by focusing on marine sponges in the Gulf of Mexico.
Room: 4055
King
Mailcode: 4295
I am interested in how sexual selection and intersexual conflict shape the evolution of traits involved in mating, and how trade-offs between traits may develop based on the ecology and/or mating system of an organism. Currently, I am examining the role of sperm density as a selective force on the evolution of multiple gamete traits in broadcast spawning organisms.
Room: 4004
King
Mailcode: 4295
I am interested in the mechanics of biological materials, specifically relating to their ability to resist damage. To examine these topics, I use approaches from materials science to understand the physics behind their deformation and therefore the diversity in microstructural features.
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Room: 241
Biomedical Research Facility
Mailcode: 4340
How labile is phenotypic evolution and what factors inhibit this process? My dissertation aims to answer this question by studying the evolution of male body morphology among poeciliid fishes at three levels. At the broadest level I am studying how associations between phenotypic traits can influence the evolution and diversification of poeciliid species. At the population level I am investigating how local ecological factors maintain phenotypic differences among populations of a single species. The narrowest level of my research focuses on the role of intersexual genetic correlations and the resulting sexual conflicts on the evolution of male and female shape within a population.
Room: 4055
KIN
Mailcode: 4295
I am generally interested in animal behavior, evolution and genetics. Currently I am investigating how variation in social environment may explain the maintenance of phenotypic variation. My dissertation work focuses on how genes, social environment and gene by social environment interactions influence the development of male behavioral and life history traits in sailfin mollies (Poecilia latipinna). I am also addressing how males with different life histories vary in fitness across social contexts.
Room: 4004
King
Mailcode: 4295
My research focuses on teleost fish demographics, life history, habitat and prey preference, reproductive behavior and other important ecological and behavioral factors that inform how anthropogenic effects (i.e. pollution, overfishing, habitat destruction) impact fish populations. I am particularly interested in the dynamics of heavy metal bioaccumulation and its effects on the Atlantic Goliath Grouper (Epinephelus itajara), a legally protected long-lived reef fish endemic to the southeastern U.S.
Room: 4055
King Life Sciences
Mailcode: 4370
Room: 4004
King
Mailcode: 4295
I'm interested in the ecology and evolution of dispersal and range expansion. Using artificial landscapes in the lab with Callosobruchus maculatus, I'm investigating how resource heterogeneity influences rates of population spread. I'm also working with the recently introduced Kudzu Bugs, Megacopta cribraria, to understand how behavioral and morphological traits associated with dispersal evolve along an invasion gradient.
Room: 4023
KING
I am interested in ontogenetic shifts in how insect herbivores interact with each other and their host plants. I am currently investigating how density mediates interactions at small scales and how both density as a structuring element of populations and spatial structure itself change through the life cycle in Leptinotarsa juncta (the false potato beetle), with the ultimate goal of understanding the effects of ontogenetic shifts on population dynamics and the evolution of traits related to movement (e.g., conspecific aggregation, foraging). I also use mathematical models to explore the feedbacks between density-dependent selection and proposed mechanisms of aggregation to better characterize the pathways by which aggregation might arise as an adaptive behavior versus an emergent pattern.
Room: 4023
King
Mailcode: 4295
In general I'm interested in the reproduction and recruitment of marine benthic invertebrates. Currently my research is focused on how heterogeneity within colonial corals may contribute to genetic diversity and coral reef resiliency.
Room: 4079
KING
Mailcode: 4295
Plant ecology, evolution, and biodiversity informatics.
Room: 2024
King
Mailcode: 4295
I�m generally interested in the community ecology of marine fishes, with particular focus on elasmobranchs. For my dissertation I am investigating the effects of a seasonal migration of Blacktip sharks, Carcharhinus limbatus, on coastal seagrass communities in the Florida Big Bend, and I am using this system to evaluate evidence for either top-down control from a single predator species or diffuse predation through several species occupying similar trophic levels.
Room: 2024
King
Mailcode: 4295
My research interests are in the physiological ecology of fishes. I am particularly interested in researching deep sea sharks, using plasma hormones to better understand their reproduction, and blood stress parameters to assess any long-term effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Room: 4023
King
Mailcode: 4295
Rare species are rare for different reasons and in different ways, and understanding the causes of rarity will help refine predictions for the consequences of biodiversity loss. I am interested in understanding what makes a species rare and how some are able to persist at a stable size while others are threatened with imminent extinction. I will conduct field demographic studies to compare rare and common sister taxa, and complement these with manipulations of factors that can promote rarity to identify features that differentiate rare species that are stable from rare species that are threatened by extinction.
Room: 4004
King
Mailcode: 4295
Room: 4055
KING
Mailcode: 4295
Plant evolution and systematics
Room: 4055
King
Mailcode: 4295
I am interested in how phenotypic and genetic variation are maintained in ecologically relevant traits that are under strong natural selection. I examine this by looking at the behavioral and genomic mechanisms underlying female mate preference and the maintenance of polymorphism in Trinidad guppies (Poecilia reticulata) and their close relatives, Poecilia picta.
Room: 4004
King
Mailcode: 4295
I am interested in understanding complex courtship and territorial displays and the importance of social context. I am currently investigating how multiple aspects of fine-scale variation of male motor performance are related to sexual selection. My study system is the Lance-tailed Manakin (Chiroxiphia lanceolata), a tropical lekking bird with complex acrobatic displays.
Room: 4023
King Life Sciences
Mailcode: 4295
I am interested in ecological processes and community dynamics that occur on a micro-scale. My current work examines the composition and structure of microbial communities that live on seagrass blades and the relationship these communities have with their seagrass host.
