Fellowship Year: 2005
Discipline: Ecology, Evolutionary Biology
Fellowship Institution: University of Arizona
Research Interests
Evolutionary biology was born out of an age-old desire to understand the origin and diversification of organismal forms. Yet, despite tremendous advances in the understanding of adaptive variation of current forms, the initial focus on their origination and innovation remains largely forgotten. The primary reason for this is the lack of a suitable conceptual framework that incorporates the advances of developmental and molecular biology into evolutionary theory. I propose a novel research program that integrates approaches from biochemistry, mathematics, and molecular genetics to explain the origin and diversification of avian coloration patterns - some of the most spectacular and diverse traits in the living world. The main premise of this program is that diversification of color displays is best understood by considering plumage ontogeny and evolution as a series of hierarchically arranged developmental and functional modules, from pigment molecules to complex behavioral displays.
