Albert F. BennettDean |
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Research Interests |
Evolutionary and comparative physiology | |
| URL | Home page | |
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Academic Distinctions |
1978-83 National Institutes of Health Career Development Award 1981 Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science 1989-90 Irvine Faculty Research Fellowship (with R.E. Lenski) 1994 Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2002 August Krogh Distinguished Lecturer, American Physiological Society 2007 Western Evolutionary Biologist of the Year, UC Network for Experimental Research on Evolution |
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| Appointments | 1971-73 Miller Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley | |
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Research Abstract |
My research concerns the interaction of living systems with their environments, particularly in regard to temperature and energy exchange. Temperature controls nearly all rate processes in organisms, including their metabolism, locomotion, growth and reproduction, and thus governs all aspects of their lives. All these processes are likewise limited by energy intake and its subsequent partitioning into maintenance, thermoregulation, synthesis, and activity. I study these factors in very diverse kinds of organisms. Much of my earlier research involved comparative and experimental studies on vertebrates, particularly reptiles, which have limited capacities of oxygen uptake and are consequently very reliant on anaerobic metabolism to sustain vigorous activity. These physiological constraints, coupled with variable body temperatures, create interesting adaptive patterns in behavior and energy allocation that are quite distinct from those of homeothermic animals. Much of this work was undertaken in an attempt to understand the evolution of endothermy (“warm-bloodedness”) in mammals and birds, both in regard to the alterations entailed in physiology and morphology and also in the selective factors that promoted its development. In order to study evolution in different environments experimentally, I use populations of bacteria which can be cultured for thousands of generations in the laboratory and measure changes in their adaptive fitness and underlying genetics. This research has involved nearly 100 populations which have adapted to different thermal and acid environments, some of them constant and some variable. Experimental evolution provides an important tool for testing evolutionary hypotheses and determining the diversity of adaptive responses to novel environments. | |
| Publications | Bennett, A. F., and R. E. Lenski. 2007. An experimental test of evolutionary trade-offs during temperature adaptation. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 104: 8649-8654. | |
| Hughes, B. S., A. J. Cullum, and A. F. Bennett. 2007. Evolutionary adaptation to environmental acidity in experimental lineages of Escherichia coli. Evolution 61: 1725-1734. | ||
| Britt, E., A. F. Bennett, and J. W. Hicks. 2006. The energetic consequences of dietary specialization in populations of the garter snake Thamnophis elegans. J. exp. Biol. 209: 3164-3169. | ||
| Garland, T. Jr., A. F. Bennett, and E. L. Rezende. 2005. Phylogenetic approaches in comparative physiology. J. exp. Biol. 208: 3015-3035. | ||
| Riehle, M. M., A. F. Bennett, and A. D. Long. 2005. Changes in gene expression following high temperature adaptation in experimentally evolved populations of Escherichia coli. Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 78: 299-315. | ||
| McCue, M. D., A. F. Bennett, and J. W. Hicks. 2005. The effect of meal composition on specific dynamic action in Burmese Pythons (Python molurus). Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 78: 182-192. | ||
| Andersen, J. B, B. C. Rourke, V. J. Caiozzo, A. F. Bennett, and J. W. Hicks. 2005. Postprandial cardiac hypertrophy in pythons. Nature 434: 37-38. | ||
| Grants | 2001-2005 National Science Foundation Grant IBN-0091308 (Integrative Animal Biology) - "Physiological Basis of Metabolism and Activity: Plasticity and Prioritization of Cardiopulmonary Function in Elevated Metabolic States” - Co-Principal Investigator with J. W. Hicks. | |
| 2001-2006 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant 632731– “Center for Genomic and Evolutionary Studies on Microbial Life at Low Temperatures” – Michael Tomashow, PI. A. F. Bennett and R. E. Lenski, Participants. | ||
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Professional Societies |
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Elected Fellow) American Association Advancement of Science (Elected Fellow) American Physiological Society Society for Experimental Biology Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Society for the Study of Evolution |
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| Graduate Programs |
Comparative Physiology |
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| Link to this profile | http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4546 | |
| Last updated | 08/09/2007 | |