Dr. Benstead’s research program focuses on how energy availability, nutrient limitation, and temperature interact to affect food web structure and ecosystem-level processes. While his research leverages the unique characteristics of streams and their suitability for ecosystem-level research, it concentrates on broad questions that are also relevant to other ecosystem types. Although guided by theory, Dr. […]
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Dr. Reed’s lab uses genomic technologies and statistical genetics to assess the relative contribution of diet and genetic variation to metabolic disease in natural populations. The fruit fly is used as a model of Metabolic Syndrome, a condition effecting greater than 30% of (human) Americans. Metabolic Syndrome is typified by obesity and insulin resistance and […]
Dr. Yoder’s lab uses the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to learn how genetic changes have been responsible for the evolution of diverse animal forms. He looks at how altered gene expression (when and where genes are turned on or off) has shaped the fly’s abdomen. For example, male Drosophila have fewer segments in their abdomen […]
Dr. Ryan Earley specializes in integrative animal behavior, with particular emphasis on fishes that inhabit some of the most fascinating (and challenging) ecosystems on the planet. He fuses field-based research on the ecology of these fishes with rigorous laboratory experimentation on the mechanisms – from genes and hormones to neural circuits – that drive phenotypic […]
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