Christopher Schwind

Jessie Bunkley

Paulo Guimarães

Britt Koskela

Sabbatical Visitors

Cristina Lorenzi (University of Turin)

Graduate Students

Kate Rich

horjus@biology.ucsc.edu

I am interested in how local networks of interacting species are influenced by the ecological context in which they occur and the phylogenetic context in which they have evolved. My thesis work examines the ecology and evolution of interactions between diversifying lineages of the plant genus Lithophragma and the moth genus Greya in the California Coast Ranges. Using field, greenhouse, and laboratory work, I am addressing how local interactions between moths and plants differ among sites, the driving forces behind these differences, and the phylogeograpic history of the species across the California Coast Ranges.

 

Undergraduate Students

Christopher Schwind is part of the Undergraduate Research Internship Program in the Thompson Lab. He is assisting in our lab's current efforts to understand the extent of geographic covariation in the traits that may be important to the interaction between Greya and Lithophragma, and the consequences of that variation on the ecological outcomes of the interaction (mutualism, commensalism, or antagonism). He is working with moths and plants from field sites that range from Eastern Washington to Southern California.