How to Survive a Historic Heatwave: Physiological Impacts of the PNW Heat Dome on an Intertidal Kelp
By: Robin Fales (Carrington Lab)

A computational interrogation of lateral root development
By: Sophia Jannetty (Bagheri Lab)

Cell-searching: did habitat openness parallel grass dominance in the Cenozoic assembly of great plains grasslands?
By: William Brightly (Stromberg Lab)

Investigating the role of the actin cytoskeleton in sensory cell development and function
By: Evan Craig (Rasmussen Lab)

If the traits that confer increased reproductive success vary with environmental context, and information about context is available to juveniles during development, then adaptive developmental plasticity (ADP) may evolve. Here I show how male widow spiders (genus Latrodectus) are useful for testing hypotheses about ADP because their relatively short lifespans and well-documented, extreme mating behaviours allow strong predictions about how phenotypes are expected to shift under variable social contexts.

Understanding the proximate (physiological/developmental) and ultimate (evolutionary) mechanisms that drive adaptive responses to human-altered environments is among the most pressing concerns of contemporary organismal biology and conservation. Human modifications to the natural world present extreme and novel environments for many species around the globe, and offer unique opportunities to study the process of evolution in real-time.

Measuring cell-generated forces and tissue mechanical properties in vivo and in situ has proven very difficult. For this reason, our understanding of how feedback loops between biochemical signaling and mechanics contribute to robust multicellular morphogenesis is still poor. To address this limitation, I helped develop a technique based on ferrofluid droplets which allows to measure multiple mechanical parameters at time- and length-scales relevant for embryonic development.