 Penn State University 208 Mueller Lab University Park, PA 16802 Phone: 814- 863-1384 Fax: 814-865-9131 Email: jhm10 at psu.edu |
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Recent Lab News: Vera, Wheat, et al.
present first de novo assembly
(without
use of existing genome or EST data) and annotation of a transcriptome using 454 sequence data (online pub). Wheat publishes new analysis of genetic basis of a key innovation for plant-insect coevolution (PNAS) from work done during his previous post-doc. Schilder wins Scholander Award from American Physiological Society for work from his PhD at PSU; publishes invited commentary in J. Diabetes Sci. Tech. Montooth (former co-advised grad student) accepts tenure track faculty position at Indiana. Girgenrath (former post-doc) accepts tenure track faculty position at Boston University Bejan and Marden present unifying physics theory for running, swimming, and flying 1999-2006: Six papers in four different sections (Physiology, Evolution, Genetics, Engineering) of PNAS Standing in solidarity with patriots who demand truth about the events of 9/11 |
My research interests are primarily in the areas of physiological
ecology, functional genomics,
evolutionary ecology, and behavior.
In the most general terms, I am interested in how animals work and why they work that way. In other words, I investigate mechanistic details of animal physiology in an ecological and evolutionary context. I work primarily with insects because they are readily available, fantastically diverse, and ecologically/economically important. Work in my lab is often what is called integrative biology, as we aim to discover the relationships between molecular level phenomena, cellular and tissue physiology, whole organism function, behavior, and ecology.
Projects presently underway in my laboratory examine functional genomics of butterflies in a well studied metapopulation, and intraspecific variation in flight performance in the dragonfly Libellula pulchella. Other recent work has examined the evolution of insect flight using stoneflies as model organisms, and the genetic bases of performance variation in free-flying Drosophila melanogaster .
