Evolution and Adaptation

Genetics, climate change, and conservation become highly intertwined in Dr. Andrew Whitehead’s lab. Although he works on a variety of research endeavors, he mainly focuses on how wild species respond to human-induced stress, such as the effects of climate change, and how that may affect an individual organism’s progeny. Essentially, Dr. Whitehead attempts to monitor how climate change and pollution will shape the genetic makeup of multiple generations.

As director of CMSI, Richard Grosberg works with researchers to understand our coastal and marine systems. Together, they educate the public and engage policymakers to sustain and restore the coastal environment in California and beyond.

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Meadow spittlebugs, once very abundant on plants along the California coastline, are declining rapidly or vanishing from their previous habitats, according to ecologists Richard Karban and Mikaela Huntzinger of UC Davis, co-authors of newly published research in the journal Ecology.

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UC Davis professors Rick Grosberg and Geerat Vermeij have studied how some key traits enable some species to be rare and may also hold the ticket to their survival.  Their perspective paper is published in the journal Ecology Letters and can help conservationists better manage both rare and common species. 

UC Davis News wrote about the paper here. 

One of the world's leading experts in fish morphology, Peter Wainwright has begun to tie together how the 700 families of fish are related to one another and how they have evolved in their environments. His work focuses on biomechanics of how fish feed and how this has led to their ecology.