My students and I study the adaptive significance of social and reproductive behaviors. Currently, our study organisms include bdelloid rotifers, fig wasps, little-hermit hummingbirds, Washington ground squirrels, and humans. Despite this apparent diversity, we are united intellectually because we all take a Darwinian approach, and we keep our levels of analysis separate as we develop and conduct strong inference tests of alternative adaptive and nonadaptive hypotheses using data gathered in the field or gleaned from the literature.
