We investigate causal, developmental, functional, and evolutionary aspects of animal behavior. This includes analyzing genetic,
neural and psychological mechanisms underlying behavior, as well as their evolutionary consequences in terms of speciation and diversification. Research is conducted both in laboratory and field populations.
Within OEB, we focus primarily on animal systems other than humans, including the neurobiology of learning and memory, the behavioral ecology of species interactions, mating behavior and its role in species divergence, and perceptions involved in social interactions.
Benjamin L. de Bivort
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Discovering why individuals behave uniquely by linking automated quantification of behavior to variation at the molecular, cellular and neural circuit levels | |
Scott V. Edwards
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Evolutionary biology of birds and relatives, combining field, museum and genomics approaches to understand the basis of avian diversity, evolution and behavior |
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Brian D. Farrell
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Rates, directions and consequences of evolutionary diversification, as well as the marks of evolutionary history on community structure; interactions between various tiny consumers and their hosts, such as beetles and plants or mosquitoes, pathogens and vertebrates |
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David A. Haig
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Maternal-fetal conflict in human pregnancy to the evolution of plant life cycles. Particular interest in genetic conflicts within individual organisms, as exemplified by genomic imprinting |
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Hopi E. Hoekstra
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Identifying and characterizing the molecular changes responsible for traits that affect fitness of organisms in the wild; using wild mice to study the genetic basis of morphological and behavior adaptation |
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Robin Hopkins
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Speciation in plants, predominantly focused on reinforcement, the process in which reduced hybrid fitness generates selection for the evolution of reproductive isolation between emerging species |
Bence P. Ölveczky
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Principles and mechanisms used by neural circuits to generate complex, learned behaviors |
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Naomi E. Pierce
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Behavioral ecology and evolution, focusing on species interactions such as insect/host plant associations and symbioses between insects and other organisms; life history evolution and systematics of Lepidoptera |
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Yun Zhang
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How structure and function of neural circuits regulate complex behavior, including olfactory learning |