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  • Porphyrogenes peterwegii

     Pupa of the butterfly Porphyrogenes peterwegii "peering" out of its leafy nest with false eyes, which in turn mimic the eyes of a snake, thereby protecting the pupa from small feather-brained  birds.

  • Drosophila

    Drosophila are small flies, typically pale yellow to reddish brown to black, with red eyes. Many species, including the noted Hawaiian picture-wings, have distinct black patterns on the wings. The plumose (feathery) arista, bristling of the head and thorax, and wing venation are characters used to diagnose the family.

  • Field Work

    Many genes that organisms use to regulate their mutualists are also used to defend against parasites and pathogens. The shared genetic control of beneficial and harmful symbioses raises the intriguing possibility that susceptibility to infection is a pleiotropic cost of mutualism. Our goal is to understand how a genetic tradeoff between attracting mutualists and repelling parasites has shaped the genomic architecture of traits mediating species interactions, and how ongoing conflict influences adaptation. 

  • Escherichia coli

    Escherichia coli cells with fluorescently labeled chromosomal loci. 

  • Larix siberica

    Siberian Larch, taken at our field site near Lake Khovsgol in north-central Mongolia.  We are analyzing tree-ring width and stable isotopes of the tree rings to reconstruct climate, and Larch responses to climate change, over the past century as the temperature in Mongolia has risen.  

Biology is fundamental to our changing world. The 21st century challenge for our students, our scholars, and the greater society is to understand our place in this changing world and to create fundamental knowledge for informed policies, economies, and social structure.

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