Applied Evolution

Issue

Evolutionary principles are essential for understanding how biological systems adapt to new environments and respond to future selective pressures. These principles offer a powerful predictive framework for tackling challenges like biodiversity loss, invasive organisms, emerging infectious and epizootic diseases, and agricultural sustainability. An applied evolution framework reframes these issues as problems we can anticipate, model, and manage over time, rather than problems we must continuously react to. This shift in perspective is critical to the long-term sustainability of agriculture, biodiversity conservation, and medicine. Our "Applied Evolution" Critical Issue Initiative convenes faculty from biology, ecosystem science, plant science, and plant pathology to develop frameworks for these urgent problems and to build partnerships with industry and government to apply scientific understanding to stakeholder needs.

Conveners

Margarita Lopez-Uribe, Ph.D.
Nancy and John Steimer Professor of Agricultural Sciences, Associate Professor of Entomology
Department of Entomology

Jason Keagy, Ph.D
Assistant Research Professor of Wildlife Behavioral Ecology
Department of Ecosystem Science and Management

Members

• Ciao Brunharo, Associate Professor of Weed Science
• Liana Burghardt, Associate Professor of Plant Science
• Sharifa Crandall, Assistant Research Professor of Soilborne Disease Dynamics and Management
• Luis Duque, Assistant Research Professor in Storage Root Physiology
• Jill Hamilton, Associate Professor and Director of the Schatz Center for Tree Molecular Genetics
• David Kennedy, Associate Professor of Biology
• Monica Kersch-Becker, Associate Professor of Arthropod Ecology
• Jesse Lasky, Professor of Biology
• Ruairidh Sawers, Associate Professor of Plant Response to Abiotic Stress