The Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics Focus Group includes a group of faculty with wide-ranging expertise in population biology and evolution. Special strengths within this group include overlapping faculty interests in biogeography, life history evolution, phylogenetic systematics, conservation biology, evolutionary genetics, Neotropical ecology, and aquatic ecology. Research emphases of the faculty include a broad range of experimental, comparative, and molecular techniques in both laboratory and field applications. Graduate students have available to them experts in DNA sequencing, allozyme electrophoresis, multivariate statistics, mathematical modeling, cladistic phylogenetic reconstruction, and the region's field sites. In taxonomic terms, the faculty specialize in flowering plants, birds, mammals, yeast, mussels, fish, and endoparasites, yet supervise graduate student research in all taxonomic categories.
Faculty frequently collaborate to offer seminar discussion courses at the graduate level. Recent offerings include Evolution of Sex (Zeyl, Browne, and Anderson), Conservation Biology (Weigl), Life History Evolution (Anderson and Browne), Species Concepts (Kron) and Biogeography (Kron and Weigl). Several lecture-based graduate courses are offered by EES faculty, including Behavioral Ecology (Anderson), Physiological Ecology (Dimock), and Foundations of Ecology (Silman and Anderson).
The EES faculty welcome graduate student research proposals that build on their ongoing research programs as well as new directions prompted by incoming graduate student interest. Please feel free to contact any one of us to explore possibilities for Master's degree and Ph.D. research.
Links to Faculty Pages:
Dr. David Anderson: Behavioral ecology, life history evolution
Dr. Kenneth Berenhaut (Department of Mathematics): Mathematical modelling, applied probability
Dr. Robert Browne: Conservation genetics, ecology and evolution of life history traits
Dr. William Conner, Chemical ecology, bioacoustics, animal communication
Dr. Ronald Dimock: Invertebrate zoology, marine and freshwater physiological ecology
Dr. Gerald Esch: Ecological parasitology, host/parasite relationships in aquatic systems
Dr. Herman Eure: Parasitology, host parasite interactions, seasonality of parasite populations
Dr. Kathleen Kron: Molecular systematics of flowering plants (Ericaceae, Polygonaceae)
Dr. James Norris (Department of Mathematics): Statistical ecology, capture-recapture methodology
Dr. Miles R. Silman: Plant community ecology
Dr. William K. Smith: Plant physiological and biophysical ecology
Dr. Peter Weigl: Vertebrate ecology, energetic aspects of adaptation
Dr. Clifford Zeyl: Ecology and evolutionary genetics
Please visit the web pages of individual faculty and to contact them by e-mail for further information.
Click here to fill out an on-line graduate school application.
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