The Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) at the University of Kansas offers MA and Ph.D. degrees in Botany, Entomology, or Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.
Three broad overlapping themes capture the current research interests and activities in EEB:
Faculty members and students in KU-EEB study the diversity of life on Earth—its spatial and temporal patterns; its evolutionary history; its levels of organization from genes to species to clades to ecosystems. EEB scientists document the diversity of Earth's terrestrial and marine organisms, fossil and living, through biotic surveys that span the globe and traverse geologic time; they study species origins, distributions, phylogenies, and symbioses from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.
Comprehensive research and teaching resources include DNA sequencing and computational facilities, and world-class collections of recent and fossil organisms that are housed in the closely allied KU Biodiversity Research Center. Taxonomic foci include botany, paleobotany, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, ornithology, mammalogy, parasitology, cnidarians, and vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology.
Click here to see a list of EEB faculty who are conducting research in this area.
Prominent areas of study include:
Faculty members and students in KU-EEB explore the interactions of organisms with each other and with their environment to elucidate the principles that govern ecological systems and their responses to global change phenomena. Research spans levels of organization from genes to ecosystems, and addresses questions in physiological, behavioral, population, community, and ecosystem ecology. Diverse taxa—microbes, protists, plants, and animals—are studied using observational, theoretical, and experimental approaches, both in the field, and in the laboratory with model organisms.
Ongoing research is aimed at understanding how global-change phenomena, such as climate change, altered patterns of land use, changing atmospheric chemistry, and biotic invasions, shape ecology and evolution. High-quality instrumentation is available on campus, as well at the nearby University of Kansas Field Station and Ecological Reserves.
Click here to see a list of EEB faculty who are conducting research in this area.
Prominent areas of study include:
Faculty members and students in KU-EEB investigate the evolutionary forces shaping populations, species, and genomes. Questions are addressed in speciation, sexual selection, phenotypic evolution, population structure, and the maintenance of genetic variation. Current areas of active research include developmental evolution, the evolution of genetic and epigenetic systems, behavior and behavioral genetics, statistical phylogenetics, quantitative trait evolution, and studies of population genetic structure.
Research strategies include both experimental and theoretical approaches, and involve both natural and model systems in a wide variety of organisms, including cnidarians, Drosophila, hymenoptera, Mimulus and other flowering plants, viruses and other pathogens. There is significant strength in quantitative, statistical, and theoretical approaches, and in the use of modern genomic tools for the study of evolution.
Click here to see a list of EEB faculty who are conducting research in this area.
Prominent areas of study include:
Email Page
Print Page