Search for people, departments, or email addresses.
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department
Distinquished Research Professor
Faculty
Research Professor
Evolution
Ecology
CSC Coastal Biology Building
278 Coastal Biology Building
By appointment
CBB/EE Biology
B.A., Washington & Jefferson College, Pennsylvania
Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana
Coevolution of species; evolution and ecology of interactions among species; assembly and diversification of the web of life
Coevolution and the Organization of Biodiversity
Research in my laboratory is on the ways in which coevolution among species organizes the earth's biodiversity. The goal is to understand how the web of life is organized across broad geographic landscapes as species coevolve with each other within and across biological communities. Our work includes studies of species interactions in many types of environments, from relatively pristine landscapes to others that are becoming increasingly fragmented and modified by introduced taxa. We use a wide range of ecological, genetic, molecular, and evolutionary approaches to study how the interacting species may coevolve in different ways in different habitats, and how interactions continue to evolve amid environmental change.
We are currently evaluating the geographic structure and evolutionary dynamics of a variety of species interactions distributed throughout western North America, including those between plants and their pollinators and herbivores. We are asking how interacting species differ in local adaptation, how local coevolutionary hotspots shape the overall genetic structure and evolutionary trajectories of interactions, and how the evolution of polyploidy in plant populations leads to the diversification of plant species and interactions with other taxa.
Darwin-Wallace Medal for Major Contributions to Evolutionary Biology, Linnean Society,
Per Brinck Oikos Award for Contributions to the Science of Ecology
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Past President, American Society of Naturalists
https://thompsonlab.sites.ucsc.edu/publications/
This campus directory is the property of the University of California at Santa Cruz. To protect the privacy of individuals listed herein, in accordance with the State of California Information Practices Act, this directory may not be used, rented, distributed, or sold for commercial purposes. For more details, please see the university guidelines for assuring privacy of personal information in mailing lists and telephone directories. If you have any questions please contact the ITS Support Center.
