Genomics of species interactions
Species interactions are a crucible
for the evolution of organic diversity. Our research group in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona studies the ecology and evolution species interactions through the lens of genomics. Primarily, we focus on interactions between herbivorous insects, vascular plants and their symbiotic bacteria.
We encourage you to peruse this website and welcome contact from prospective collaborators, lab members and others. The University of Arizona is a leader in the study of species interactions, and Tucson is an amazing place in which to study ecology and evolution, located in the diverse and beautiful Sonoran desert, nestled amongst the Sky Islands (home to jaguars and trogons) and the distinctive culture of Southern Arizona. Click on this link for Whiteman Laboratory group news and see our blog on biodiversity and field projects here. NOTE: we are recruiting one new Ph.D. student to start in fall 2015. Prospective students should email Dr. Whiteman at the address below for more information. To contact us, visit individual lab member pages or email Dr. Whiteman at whiteman [at] email [dot] arizona [dot] edu, phone him at 520-626-3950, or stop by his office in Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at 1041 East Lowell Street, Biosciences West Building, room 326 and his lab in BSW 333 in Tucson, Arizona 85721. |
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A few icons in ecology and evolutionary biology on whose shoulders we stand:
Charles Darwin Alfred Russell Wallace Alexander von Humboldt Motoo Kimura R.A. Fisher Clausen, Keck & Hiesey
This beautiful passage, from On the Origin of Species, written by Charles Darwin and published in 1859, inspires our research:
"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
Photographs throughout these pages are copyright protected by Noah Whiteman, various lab members, or were obtained through Creative Commons license agreements.
