WIKELSKI, Martin C; Princeton Univ., Princeton: MORPHOLOGY, PERFORMANCE AND FITNESS IN GALAPAGOS MARINE IGUANAS Patterns of selection in a natural population of vertebrates had deterministic and stochastic elements in the short term. Over longer time scales, this combination of selective forces resulted in directional evolutionary change of morphology as well as in the formation of […]

PODOLSKY, R D; University of North Carolina: Integrating development and environment to model reproductive performance in natural populations of a marine gastropod Marine environments pose challenges to the study of invertebrate early life-histories, owing to the physical heterogeneity and inaccessibility of many habitats and the prevalence of early dispersal stages. Much of what is known […]

KINGSOLVER, J.G.*; GOMULKIEWICZ, R.; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Washington State University: Environmental variation and selection on performance curves Many aspects of physiological and organismal performance vary with some continuous environmental variable: e.g. photosynthetic rate as a function of light intensity; growth rate or sprint speed as a function of temperature. For such performance […]

SCHMITT, J; STINCHCOMBE, J; HUBER, H; Brown University; Brown University; University of Nijmegan: Adaptive evolution of shade avoidance responses in natural plant populations Many plant species exhibit stem elongation and other developmental responses to the decreased ratio of red: far red wavelengths (R:FR) characteristic of foliage shade. This “shade avoidance” response, mediated by phytochrome photoreceptors, […]

JOHNSEN, Sonke; Duke University: Troubles in flashlight world: The effects of water turbidity and visual acuity on the success of counterillumination in deep-sea species Many deep-sea species, particularly crustaceans, cephalopods, and fish, use photophores to illuminate their ventral surface and thus disguise their silhouette from predators viewing them from below. Despite its apparent success and […]

DICKINSON, M. H.; Caltech: The Control and Execution of Rapid Flight Maneuver in Fruit Flies Drosophila, like many flies, search and explore their environment using a series of straight flight segments interspersed with stereotyped changes in heading termed saccades. Each saccades is a rapid maneuver in which the fly turns 90o in less than 50 […]

HOFMANN, G.E.; University of California, Santa Barbara: Some Like It Hot, Some Like It Cold: Hsp Gene Expression in Ectothermic Marine Organisms The goal of my research program is to employ biochemical and molecular techniques to gain ecological insight into the role of temperature in setting species� distribution patterns in the marine environment. The central […]

GILMOUR, K.M.; Carleton University: Physiological causes and consequences of social status in rainbow trout When rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) are held in small groups, they form linear dominance hierarchies. The most dominant fish holds the best position in the environment, gains the largest share of food and exhibits aggression towards fish lower in the hierarchy. […]

WIKELSKI, Martin C; Princeton University: Migration ecology of New World Thrushes: energetics and orientation in the wild George A. Bartholomew pioneered the investigation of physiological mechanisms in natural settings and sparked an amazing diversity of research directions. However, the migration physiology of free-flying songbirds is still largely unknown because adequate methodology to study it was […]

WAINWRIGHT, P.C.; Univ. of California, Davis: Making diversity: the evolution of feeding mechanics in fishes Biological diversity is not only about the number of taxa on earth, but also their morphological and functional diversity. My research program is aimed at understanding how functional diversity arises through studies of the feeding mechanism of fishes. We have […]