Research Opportunities

The diversity of research questions addressed by EEB faculty and students generates a wide range of opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral research collaborations.  We welcome highly motivated students who value teamwork and share our enthusiasm and commitment to answering fundamental questions in the increasingly integrative fields of ecology and evolutionary biology.  We especially value student researchers who bring energy and imagination to our research programs.  The labs listed below currently have openings for student participation.  We encourage you to contact the associated faculty for more information about these opportunities.

Emery Lab: Graduate students and undergrads:

The evolution of dispersal ability in plants restricted to ephemeral wetland habitats. Life-history trade-offs in a genus of endemic California plant species. Niche evolution in the genus Lasthenia. Pollen limitation in a tallgrass prairie plant species.

Dukes Lab: Graduate students:

We seek students interested in studying the following topics, or related topics: The effects of climate change and other environmental changes on plant communities and ecosystems (including the effects of these changes on the abundance of invasive plant species); The effects of different land-cover types (i.e., different plant communities / crops etc.) on regional climate and on ecosystem services such as carbon storage; Invasive plant species: what leads to their success, what are their impacts, how can their impacts be minimized?; The consequences of interactions between plants and soil microbes for plant community composition and function.

Fernandez-Juricic Lab: For graduate and undergraduate students:

Is the cell topography of the avian retina influenced more by phylogenetic noise or species ecology? What is the relationship between vigilance behavior and the configuration of the visual system of birds? What is the degree of fear of different bird species to a robot-raptor? Is it a function of species size, novelty, or visual detection? A consumer's perspective: how can we develop a visually attractive bird feeder taking into account the bird's eye view?

Howard Lab: For undergraduates:

Mate preferences of normal and genetically modified (i.e., "glowfish") zebrafish. Sperm competition in salamanders. The influence of phenotypic plasticity on invasion success in native and exotic grasses in the genus Bromus. Reproduction in a unisexual salamander

Lucas Lab: Undergraduates:

Auditory physiology of a brood parasite: Cowbirds parasitize a wide variety of songbirds. There is some evidence that they use the song of their hosts to indicate the relative value of a given nest; however, cowbirds have an unusual song themselves, so it is an open question how their auditory system is designed to process both their own song and that of their hosts. This project includes both a field component (playback, sound recording) and a lab component (measuring auditory response to sounds, sound analysis).

Fragmentation effects on communication and space use: chickadees have one of the most complex non-song vocal repertoires of any bird. We think that this is the result of an unusual social system where unrelated birds band together in the winter and jointly defend a large territory. There is some evidence that forest fragmentation disrupts space use in these birds, and we have some evidence that physiological stress is higher in disturbed habitat. This project aims to evaluate the role that forest fragmentation has on vocal communication, and therefore close the circle of causal factors from spatial factors regulating the social system via alteration in vocal behavior.

Rabenold Lab: Graduate and undergraduate students:

Population dynamics and changing distributions of birds in tropical montane rainforests; Exotic species and associated changes in bird and plant communities of Appalachian forests in the Great Smoky Mountains

Undergraduates: Ecological succession and the importance of soils in the forests of the Ross Biological Reserve of Purdue University.

Waser Lab: undergraduate students:

Kin recognition, inbreeding avoidance, and dispersal: analyses using a long-term demographic and genetic database from Arizona kangaroo rats

Minchella Lab: Graduate students and undergraduates:

The group explores the coevolutionary interactions between hosts and parasites using local trematode parasites and their hosts to address questions such as: how does parasite selection pressure influence host life history patterns?

In addition, we utilize molecular epidemiology to study the genetic structure of parasite populations /(Schistosoma mansoni/). Questions include: how does parasite genetic variability influence the epidemiology of host disease?

Nichols Lab: Graduate students and undergraduates:

Genetics and evolution of anadromy in salmonid fishes.

Pelaez Lab: Graduate students and undergraduates

Vascular smooth muscle physiology and signal transduction, physiology and evolution, biology education, physiology education.