Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

My research group studies the evolutionary ecology of specific pairwise mutualisms between marine vertebrates and light-emitting marine bacteria. We are interested primarily in: (1) the genetic, developmental, and ecological processes and mechanisms involved in symbiont acquisition and specificity; (2) the evolutionary processes and biological consequences of host – symbiont genetic integration; and (3) the influence of symbiosis in shaping the population genetic structure of host and symbiont.

global change