Browsing Faculty of Arts and Sciences by FAS Department "Biology, Organismic and Evolutionary"
Now showing items 1-20 of 78
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A Whole New Whorl: An Exploration of the Morphology, Genetics, and Ecological Function of the Staminodes of Aquilegia
(2018-05-03)The organ identity genes that encode the four organs of the canonical floral body plan are well characterized. In contrast, the downstream developmental pathways involved in programming the morphological differences found ... -
Abiotic Influences on Free-Living Microbial Communities in Hydrothermal Vent Ecosystems
(2016-05-18)Hydrothermal vent ecosystems are defined by steep thermal and chemical gradients. Chemosynthetic microorganisms are the primary producers in these systems, utilizing the available chemical energy to support substantial ... -
Adaptation in the forest deer mouse: evolution, genetics, and development
(2015-05-16)Variation in the shape, size, and number of segments along the vertebral column underlies a vast amount of vertebrate diversity. Although the molecular pathways controlling vertebrate segmentation during normal development ... -
An Insect Wing: Expansion, Hemodynamics, and Venation Patterns
(2019-05-14)Almost one million species of insects have been described to date, with most being winged and capable of flight. Wing venation patterns are highly diverse, with some wings partitioned into just a few “domains” (vein-bounded ... -
Anatomical Patterns, Kinematics, and Propulsive Strategies of Foot-Based Swimming Birds
(2017-05-15)Within the diversity of birds, numerous lineages have colonized aquatic environments. Birds that swim by paddling with their feet must generate propulsive forces underwater using legs originally adapted for walking. Despite ... -
Bats: A Model for Mammalian Craniofacial Diversification
(2020-05-15)Phyllostomids are a diverse family of neotropical bats with approximately 200 described living species. Phyllostomids are united by their distinctive noses, which are shaped like a leaf, hence their common name, the New ... -
Bee pollination biology: buzzing, behavior, and biomechanics
(2017-09-07)For millions of years, flowering plants have relied on animals to transfer pollen among flowers; this leads to fertilization, seed set, and ultimately the passing of genetic information to the next generation. The ... -
Causes and consequences of coexistence in the Vachellia drepanolobium ant-plant mutualism
(2017-05-10)This thesis focuses on a mutualism between the East African acacia tree Vachellia drepanolobium and the species of canopy-dwelling ants that inhabit it. The tree provides the ants with nesting space in the canopy and ... -
Causes and Consequences of Lung Loss in Salamanders
(2016-02-26)Lungs were once thought to be a universal feature of tetrapods and essential for vertebrate life on land. This view changed in the late 19th century with the discovery of several salamander species that lack lungs. Since ... -
Challenging Cooperation: Inequality, Global Commons, Future Generations
(2016-04-25)Cooperation is abundant in the world around us, spanning all levels of biological and social organisation. Yet the existence and maintenance of cooperation is puzzling from an evolutionary perspective because the costs ... -
Comparative and Population Genomics of Host-Pathogen Co-Evolution in Birds
(2017-05-11)Infectious disease produces some of the strongest selective forces on natural populations across the tree of life. The signatures of pathogen-mediated evolution on host genomes have been described for several traditional ... -
Complexity in Mutualisms: Indirect Interactions With Multiple Parties
(2015-09-23)Ant-plants provide ants with rewards such as housing and food in exchange for protection from herbivores. These protection mutualisms are complex webs of both direct interactions, such as ants feeding on host plant extrafloral ... -
Convergent Interactions Among Pitcher Plant Microcosms in North America and Southeast Asia
(2016-08-03)Ecosystems are composed of diverse suites of organisms whose interactions are mediated by both the biotic and abiotic constraints of their environments. The complexity of ecosystems makes them both resilient and difficult ... -
Determining drought sensitivity of the Amazon forest: does plant hydraulics matter?
(2015-09-08)Climate change is projected to cause significant shifts in precipitation patterns across the Amazon basin. This dissertation is designed to address key uncertainties surrounding our ability to predict the fate of the Amazon ... -
Disentangling the Coevolutionary Histories of Animal Gut Microbiomes
(2015-05-17)Animals associate with microbes in complex interactions with profound fitness consequences. These interactions play an enormous role in the evolution of both partners, and recent advances in sequencing technology have ... -
Disentangling the Roles of Form and Motion in Fish Swimming Performance
(2017-05-11)A central theme of comparative biomechanics is linking patterns of variation in morphology with variation in locomotor performance. This presents a unique challenge in fishes, given their extraordinary morphological diversity ... -
Distributed Control of Microclimate by Honeybee Colonies, Apis Mellifera, L.
(2018-09-25)Social organisms often exhibit complex, ordered behaviors at the group level that are not observed in individuals. Such collective behaviors emerge from the iterative interactions between individuals, each of which sense ... -
Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences of Two Distinct Modes of Speciation in Plants
(2019-04-22)Speciation—the evolutionary process by which new species arise—can occur through genetic divergence maintaining the ploidy—the number of complete sets of chromosomes in the cells—of the descendant lineages relatively ... -
Ecological Population Genomics in the Emerging Amanita System
(2020-04-07)The genus Amanita (Agaricomycetes) is an emerging non-model system for ecological population genomics. Amanita is a charismatic genus of beautiful and sometimes deadly poisonous mushrooms. Several Amanitae are invasive ... -
Ecology and Evolution of the Ferns of Moorea and Tahiti, French Polynesia
(2016-09-12)Ferns are the only major lineage of land plants with haploid (gametophyte) and diploid (sporophyte) stages that can grow separately from each other for extended periods. Gametophytes, as the sexual stage, are critical to ...