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We study the molecular basis of co-evolution, which is when one species drives adaptation in another and vice versa.

Current research topics: (1) co-option of horitzontally transferred genes from bacteria to animals and their role in the evolution of the animal immune system; (2) evolution of herbivory in insects; (3) resistance and co-option of dietary toxins by animals; (4) balancing selection via spatially varying and frequency dependent natural selection; (5) signal-receiver co-evolution.

Our work is inspired by Darwin’s “tangled bank” metaphor:

“It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.”

Read Carl Zimmer’s article in The New York Times about our research using CRISPR to “replay the tape” of life: Click Here
Read Carolyn Wilke’s article in The NewYork Times about how fruit flies evolved to eat living leaves 12 million years ago when they turned an egg-laying organ into a jaw-like structure with teeth derived from bristles that does double duty: Click Here
Read Viviane Callier’s article in Quanta about our work and the burgeoning study of how genes borrowed by animals from microbes has shaped our immune systems and those of diverse animals: Click Here
Read Elizabeth Pennisi’s article in Science on our study showing how an ancient arms-race between plants make neurotoxic terpenoids was matched by the repeated evolution of toxin-resistance in the GABA receptors of herbivores and the ladybird beetles that eat them: Click Here