We are interested in the evolution of behavior, and in how behavior influences evolution. A large portion of our work focuses on insect communication by means of substrate-borne vibrational signals, which show astonishing complexity in their structure and in the individual interactions that they mediate.
We are especially interested in using descriptions of behavior as hypotheses about the influence that some individuals have on others — in terms of causing variation in phenotypes as well as causing variation in fitness. This approach has led, for example, to reappraisals of the aspects of sexual selection that best account for evolutionary diversification (it’s not the strength of selection per se), and of the conditions that may often foster early divergence (socially- and environmentally-driven changes to the dynamics of sexual selection).
