Julian Torres Dowdall

Research Interests:

Our research group investigates the causes and consequences of adaptive evolution. We study patterns of intra- and inter-specific phenotypic variation along ecological gradients to understand how genetic and developmental variation interact with the environment to determine evolutionary trajectories and generate diversity. To address these research goals, we use an integrative approach combining field, laboratory, and statistical approaches to identify the genetic, molecular, and environmental drivers of variation. Our emphasis is on the evolution of life history traits and color vision in fish. Fish have a diverse ecology and evolutionary history and are relatively easy to keep under controlled conditions providing a good study system. The strong theory behind the evolution of life history traits and the tractable genotype-phenotype-performance relationship of color vision make these traits excellent to study the effects of natural selection on phenotypic variation in natural populations.