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Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
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Some highlights of recent work in our department are given below. For a complete listing of faculty in EEB, see the EEB faculty page. Behavior & Physiology | Conservation Biology | Ecology | Evolution Behavior & Physiology
Faculty whose interests include Behavior and Physiology
Conservation Biology
In addition to the academic work that we pursue in these fields, the department maintains many relationships with conservation agencies (e.g., NOAA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, USGS Biological Survey), and both national and local non-profit groups (e.g., The Nature Conservancy, The Elkhorn Slough Foundation), that create opportunities for graduate student projects in conservation and help us to better formulate and apply our academic work to on-the-ground conservation concerns. Finally, many of our faculty have adjunct appointments in the Department of Environmental Studies Faculty whose interests include Conservation Biology
Ecology: Marine & Terrestrial Marine Ecology
On the cutting edge of their respective research fields, faculty incorporate the latest research developments into a diverse curriculum of lecture and field courses. These courses also take advantage of the diversity of local marine environments, including the Monterey Bay, Monterey Canyon, Elkhorn Slough, sand dunes communities, sandy beaches, rocky intertidal and kelp forest ecosystems, many of which are designated ecological research reserves (see “Research Facilities” web page). Field courses are the hallmark of marine ecology courses at UCSC. Terrestrial Ecology Faculty whose interests include Terrestrial Ecology
Faculty whose interests include Marine Ecology
Evolution Faculty whose interests include Evolution
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Faculty | Research | Courses | Graduate Program | Undergraduate Program | News & Events Copyright © University of California Santa Cruz | Last reviewed 3/1/08 by webmaster@biology.ucsc.edu. |
Research by faculty and graduate students in the behavior and physiology cluster focuses on understanding the ecological and evolutionary underpinnings of physiology and behavior, in both a free living and laboratory setting. With an emphasis on both marine vertebrates (seabirds, marine mammals) and terrestrial vertebrates (herps, birds), our research seeks to understand how physiological and behavioral mechanisms integrate with life history and social evolution. We use a diverse battery of state-of-the-art techniques to answer questions, including molecular genetics (parentage analysis, population structure), electronic tagging (movement patterns, diving behavior and physiology of marine mammals and birds), remote sensing (integrating behavior with environmental parameters) and spectrometry (analysis of visual signals). Research projects take advantage of the diverse local marine and terrestrial fauna, but also include sites around the globe from the tropics and to the poles.
The field of conservation biology has rapidly grown to encompass many aspects of organismal biology, and the majority of our faculty and graduate students have research interests that include aspects of conservation science and practice. In particular, different labs in our department have active research programs in key areas of both terrestrial and marine conservation:
Marine ecology at UCSC reflects the remarkable local and global diversity of species and marine environments studied by EEB faculty. Faculty research ranges from the Arctic to the Antarctic, tropical coral reefs to polar ice shelves. In addition, the great diversity of marine environments along the coast of California enable faculty and students to address questions central to the basic and applied ecology of the marine environment. These research programs are strengthened by interdisciplinary collaborations with oceanographers in the Ocean Science Department and marine geologists and atmospheric scientists in the Earth Sciences Department. Examples include studies of global climate change on coastal oceanographic conditions and ecosystem responses from phytoplankton production to blue whale foraging behaviors; coastal oceanographic processes that influence the dispersal of fish and invertebrate larvae that replenish the biological communities that constitute kelp forest and rocky intertidal ecosystems; the physiological constraints and adaptations that determine the foraging behavior and ranges of sea otters, seals, sea lions, whales and dolphins; and the genetic diversity and structure that shape the evolutionary relationships of marine invertebrates and fishes. Working together, EEB marine ecologists, geneticists, physiologists and others develop and explore evolving concepts of how marine ecosystems vary in space and time and how these systems respond to changing ecological processes and human activities. 
Evolutionary approaches span all the research clusters within our department. In addition, a group of laboratories in our department make explicit study of evolutionary processes the central focus of their research. These research programs include analysis of the natural selection on individual genes, the role of rapid evolution in ecological dynamics of species and communities, the ecological and behavioral structure of sexual selection, the phylogeographic of species and interspecific interaction, and coevolutionary dynamics among species. Much of the research links molecular and ecological approaches, using the wide range of techniques available within the Molecular Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics Facility.