Speciation, animal behavior and its underlying neurological mechanisms; sexual selection and the evolution of mating systems; phenotypic plasticity

My lab is broadly interested in ecology and evolution as it applies to fishes.  Fishes are fantastic subjects for evolutionary studies because of the great variation we see among and within populations and between closely related species.  My students and I try to capitalize upon this variation to ask questions about (a) how natural and sexual selection vary over time and space, (b) the extent to which variation among/within populations is attributable to genetic variation, phenotypic plasticity, and their interaction, (c) how variation in lighting environments and visual systems alters selection on coloration, and (d) the extent to which natural selection and/or genomic rearrangements are important to speciation.  We are increasingly using genomic approaches to address these questions.