Peter Raymond Grant and Barbara Rosemary Grant are a British married couple who are evolutionary biologists at Princeton University. Each currently holds the position of emeritus professor. They are known for their work with Darwin's finches on Daphne Major,one of the Galápagos Islands. Since 1973,the Grants have spent six months of every year capturing,tagging,and taking blood samples from finches on the island. They have worked to show that natural selection can be seen within a single lifetime,or even within a couple of years. Charles Darwin originally thought that natural selection was a long,drawn out process but the Grants have shown that these changes in populations can happen very quickly.
Peripatric speciation is a mode of speciation in which a new species is formed from an isolated peripheral population. Since peripatric speciation resembles allopatric speciation,in that populations are isolated and prevented from exchanging genes,it can often be difficult to distinguish between them. Nevertheless,the primary characteristic of peripatric speciation proposes that one of the populations is much smaller than the other. The terms peripatric and peripatry are often used in biogeography,referring to organisms whose ranges are closely adjacent but do not overlap,being separated where these organisms do not occur—for example on an oceanic island compared to the mainland. Such organisms are usually closely related;their distribution being the result of peripatric speciation.
Theridion grallator,also known as the Hawaiian happy-face spider,is a spider in the family Theridiidae that resides on the Hawaiian Islands. T. grallator gets its vernacular name of "Hawaiian happy-face spider" from the unique patterns superimposed on its abdomen,specifically those that resemble a human smiling face. T. grallator is particularly notable because of its wide range of polymorphisms that may be studied to allow a better understanding of evolutionary mechanisms. In addition to the variety of color polymorphisms present,T. grallator demonstrates the interesting quality of diet-induced color change,in which its appearance temporarily changes as it metabolizes various food items.
Elwood Curtin Zimmerman was an American entomologist best known for his two multivolume series:Insects of Hawaii published by the University of Hawaiʻi Press and Australian Weevils published by Australia's CSIRO.
Theodore Garland Jr. is a biologist specializing in evolutionary physiology at the University of California,Riverside.
Marlene Zuk is an American evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist. She worked as professor of biology at the University of California,Riverside (UCR) until she transferred to the University of Minnesota in 2012. Her studies involve sexual selection and parasites.
Anurag Agrawal is an American professor of ecology,evolutionary biology,and entomology who has written over a 150 peer-reviewed articles,which earned him an h-index of 92. He is the author of a popular science book,Monarchs and Milkweeds from Princeton University Press,and is currently the James Alfred Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies at Cornell University.
Leslie Jane Rissler is an American biologist best known for her work on amphibian and reptile biogeography,evolutionary ecology,systematics,and conservation,and for her strong advocacy of improving the public’s understanding and appreciation of evolution. She is currently Program Officer in the Evolutionary Processes Cluster of the Division of Environmental Biology and Directorate of Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
Meghan Anne Duffy is an American biologist and the Susan S. Kilham Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. She focuses on the causes and consequences of parasitism in natural populations of lake populations. In 2019,she created a task force to examine factors that influence the mental health and well-being of graduate students at the University of Michigan.
David P. Mindell is an American evolutionary biologist and author. He is currently a senior researcher at the University of California,Berkeley,Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Mindell's work is focused on the systematics,conservation and molecular evolution of birds,especially birds of prey. He is known for his 2006 book,The Evolving World in which he explained,for the general public,how evolution applies to everyday life.
Erika S. Zavaleta is an American professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California,Santa Cruz. Zavaleta is recognized for her research focusing on topics including plant community ecology,conservation practices for terrestrial ecosystems,and impacts of community dynamics on ecosystem functions.
Liliana M. Dávalos is a Colombian-born evolutionary and conservation biologist,who is currently living in the United States. Her career as a researcher and professor have focused on bats as model systems and on tropical deforestation.
Jeannine Cavender-Bares is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Ecology,Evolution &Behavior. Her research integrates evolutionary biology,ecology,and physiology by studying the functional traits of plants,with a particular focus on oaks.
Therese Ann Markow is the Amylin Chair in Life Sciences at the University of California,San Diego. Her research involves the use of genetics and ecology to study the insects of the Sonoran Desert. She was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2001 and the Genetics Society of America George Beadle Award in 2012. Her research received widespread attention for its alleged misuse of Native American genetic data.
Stephanie M. Carlson is the A.S. Leopold Chair in Wildlife Biology at the University of California Berkeley. Her research considers fish ecology,freshwater ecology,and evolutionary ecology.
Nyeema Charmaine Harris is an American environmental scientist who is Associate Professor and Director of the Applied Wildlife Ecology Laboratory at the University of Michigan. Her research considers mammalian carnivores and conservation.
Shahid Naeem is an ecologist and conservation biologist and is a Lenfest Distinguished professor and chair in the Department of Ecology,Evolution,and Environmental Biology at Columbia University. Naeem is the author of Biodiversity,Ecosystem Functioning,and Human Well-Being,and has published over 100 scientific articles.
Nicole M. Gerardo is an entomologist and Professor of Biology at Emory University in Atlanta,Georgia. In 2021,she became editor of the Annual Review of Entomology.
Ann Kiku Sakai is a plant biologist at the University of California,Irvine known for her work on plant breeding and speciation. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Caroline A. E. Strömberg is a Swedish-American paleontologist whose primary research focuses on the deep time evolution and ecology of plants through the use of the fossil record and by comparison with modern analogues,more specifically how previous plant communities changed in response to climate change and how plant evolution affected animal evolution. She is currently the Estella B. Leopold Professor of Biology and an adjunct associate professor in Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington and the Curator of Paleobotany at the affiliated Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
