Drosophila

From patterns of speciation to the birth of new genes and molecular population genetics, a wide variety of research areas are the focus the labs that work on Drosophila melanogaster and its close relatives.

Arabidopsis

Arabidopsis is the organism of choice for other labs to study genomics genetics of adaptation, and the plant-enemy interactions.

C. elegans

The nematode (C. elegans) is the organism of choice in the Ruvinski lab to approach questions in evolutionary genomics and the evolution of development.

Yeast

The Li lab is also conducting fascinating research on the mechanisms of molecular and genomic evolution using yeast as their model system.

Birds are the chosen system for two labs in our department: The Price lab focuses on the roles of ecology and sexually selected traits in speciation. The Pruett-Jones lab is concerned with the evolution of social behavior, as well as mating system and sexual selection.  Tim Wootton studies birds as components of larger ecological communities.  

The Dwyer lab uses the gypsy moth to develop mathematical models to answer questions in disease ecology, population genetics and spatial ecology

Two ecologists, Cathy Pfister and Tim Wootton, study the dynamics of marine systems in their labs. They study population dynamics and species interactions respectively, in both animal and plant marine organisms.