Botany & Plant Pathology

Graduate-degree candidates conduct research under the guidance of the School of Biology and Ecology faculty. The expertise of the faculty covers a broad spectrum, ranging from molecular and cell biology, through system- and organism-level biology, to ecology; and it applies to a diversity of organisms from protists and lower plants and invertebrate animals through vascular plants and vertebrates. By choosing a faculty advisor, graduate applicants can associate themselves with any of a number of research specializations:

Animal Behavior and Behavioral Ecology, including chronobiology, feeding behavior, foraging, host plant selection, reproductive behavior, behavior and endocrinology of birds, migration, and predator-prey interactions.

Applied Biology, including biological control and insect pest management, fisheries, and plant pathology.

Botany, Plant Biology, Mycology, including plant and fungal systematics, molecular and morphological phylogeny, reproductive biology, quantitative morphology, molecular basis of plant responses to the environment; plant ecology, marine algal ecology, plant paleoecology, microscopy of zoosporic fungi, mycology, and physiology and molecular biology of fungal pathogens.

Developmental and Cell Biology, including cell and molecular biology of muscle development, biology, developmental genetics, embryology, cardiac pacemaker mechanisms, and neurobiology.

Ecology, Environmental Biology, and Paleoecology, including aquatic, community, insect and plant ecology; biogeochemistry; biodiversity; conservation biology; paleolimnology population dynamics; population modeling; and Quaternary paleoecology.

Entomology, including insect ecology and biodiversity, insect pathology, biological control and insect pest management, ecology of aquatic insects, and predator-prey interactions, pollination ecology, and computer simulation of insect population dynamics.

Fisheries Biology, including ecology and behavior of fishes, fish microevolution and population ecology, salmonid biology, and aquaculture.

Freshwater Biology, including toxicology, ecology and behavior of fishes, lake, stream and river ecology, and paleolimnology.

Genetics and Molecular Biology, including behavioral genetics, molecular systematics, pathogen-plant interactions, plant molecular genetics and functional genomics, and the molecular basis of plant responses to the environment.

Plant Pathology, including control of fungal pathogens, and pest management.

Physiology and Physiological Ecology, including metabolic physiology of vertebrates, environmental physiology of marine invertebrates, fungal physiology, insect-plant interactions, pathogen-plant interactions, endocrine physiology and systemic physiology.

Science Education, including course and program assessment and developing innovative instructional techniques.

Systematics and Evolution, including microevolution, phylogenetics of plants, fungi, invertebrates, and fishes, and comparative morphology.