Research

Professor and three students at Bodega Marine Lab — A look through our Wayback Machine: Professor Mary McKenna and Howard University alumnae Chandler Puritty PhD, DeAna Smalls PharmD, and Nia Johnson PhD on a field trip to Bodega Marine Lab. Photo: UC Davis.

Over the past decade, it has become clear that the ecological and evolutionary consequences of human-caused environmental change are inextricably linked. For example, the ecological process of human “predation” leads to rapid evolution in life-history traits of harvested species. Similarly, habitat fragmentation, by reducing connectivity and population size, has both ecological and evolutionary consequences. In ecological terms, these reductions increase the likelihood of local extinction; in evolutionary terms, they enhance the impacts of genetic drift and change patterns of gene flow and selection.

Undergraduates in the 4EC program will gain intellectual independence and insight into what it means to be a scientist, increase their experience in a particular area of ecology, evolutionary biology, or animal behavior, and gain insight into the implications for equity.

This program really made me feel like an equal to everyone I worked with and all of the encouragement from the grad students and faculty mentors helped me to realize other people saw potential in me and that was something really heartwarming… Trusting myself to be able to do research has really helped me better believe in myself and be willing to call myself a scientist.”

Snow on a distant ridge, with trees burned in recent wildfires — Burned trees along the Blue Ridge Trail in Stebbins Canyon, with snow-frosted hills in the background after a rare snowfall, February 2023. Graham Coop/UC Davis

We will plan research projects for 4EC scholars that allow immersion into a particular question related to the ecological and evolutionary effects of rapid environmental change, with mutual engagement by scholars, faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students.

For each 4EC scholar, we also strive for co-mentoring of their research by faculty at UC Davis and a faculty member at their home institution. This recognizes the key role that these faculty play in the intellectual development of scholars, provides scholars with additional post-program mentoring, and ideally will strengthen existing scientific connections between institutions and create new ones.

Ecology and Evolution in the context of environmental change

Research projects in the 4EC REU encompass important challenges that organisms and ecosystems face as a result of rapid environmental change. They also include specific research questions in urban, rural, agricultural, and natural systems and thus span the spectrum of effects of rapid environmental change that must be addressed by society.

Potential research areas

These are a sample of research areas, rather than specific projects. For more examples of potential research, see the 4EC faculty mentors with links to their web pages.

Insects and plant-insect interactions

the biology of insect vectors of human disease, with attention to the effects of wildfires on mosquito habitats and implications for human health
ecology of plant-insect interactions, with an emphasis on the effects of climate change on insect ecology and behavior.
evolution and ecology of insect pollinators in systems under threat from climate change, agricultural conversion, and habitat destruction.
how microbial communities in flowers, on insects, or in soil modulate plant-insect interactions in natural and managed ecosystems
the influence of environmental change on insect populations and plant-animal interactions, including culturally important species such as street trees, crops, crop wild relatives, and plants that support rare insect species.

Plant ecology and evolution

mechanisms that underlie ecosystem resilience to multiple environmental changes (drought, fire, nutrient deposition, invasion) and how to manage and restore these mechanisms, focusing on seedbanks, plant-soil interactions, and ecosystem services
how plants respond to variable and changing environments
the evolutionary genetics of maize and its wild relatives, especially teosinte, the ancestor of maize

Marine and freshwater systems, fishes, and fisheries

the influence of environmental change on the evolutionary trajectories of marine organisms and the consequences of this variation for species and the functioning of ecosystems
the influence of environmental change on population dynamics of harvested marine species, and how human fishing communities respond to changes in fish populations
the structure, dynamics, and function of biological communities, including their responses to species extinctions, invasions, climate change, and fishing
how organisms balance energy demand with energy supply, in California native fishes and model fish systems, to understand how genetic variation and environment shape stress tolerance
how genomes of marine and freshwater organisms integrate cues from, respond to, and are shaped by natural and human-caused stresses that occur over physiological and evolutionary timescales
developmental and environmental drivers of behavioral variation in a model fish, and how individuals integrate cues to generate behavioral strategies

Ecology, evolution, and behavior of birds and mammals

genetic and genomic tools, and field methods, to investigate basic and applied problems in mammal ecology, evolution, and conservation
impacts of human activities on the behavior and reproductive success of birds, with a focus on the impacts of noise and other pollution, and temperature increases due to climate change.

sunflowers at sunset in West Davis — An agroecosystem on the UC Davis campus. Photo: Jeff Ross-Ibarra/UC Davis

What do research sites and study organisms look like?

Check out some general settings in this photo gallery.