Albert F. BennettDean |
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Research Interests |
Evolutionary and comparative physiology | |
| URLs | Home page | |
| Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology | ||
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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 | Tenaillon, O., A. Rodriguez-Verdugo, R. L. Gaut, P. McDonald, A. F. Bennett, A. D. Long, and B. S. Gaut. 2012. The molecular diversity of adaptive convergence. Science 335: 457-461. | |
| Barboza, P. S., A. Bennett, J-H. Lignot, R. D. Mackie, T. McWhorter, S. Secor, N. Skovgaard, M.A. Sundset and T. Wang. 2010. Digestive challenges for vertebrate animals: microbial diversity, cardio-respiratory coupling and dietary specialization. Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 83: 764-774. | ||
| Bennett, A. F., and B. S. Hughes. 2009. Microbial experimental evolution. Am. J. Physiol. (Reg.). 297: R17-R25. | ||
| Futuyma, D. J., and A. F. Bennett. 2009. The importance of experimental studies in evolutionary biology, pp. 15-30. In: Experimental Evolution: Concepts, Methods, and Applications, eds. T. Garland, Jr. and M. Rose, Univ. of Calif. Press. | ||
| Britt, E., J. W. Hicks, and A. F. Bennett. 2008. The energetic consequences of prey specialization in garter snakes (genus Thamnophis). Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 81: 247-254. | ||
| 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 temporally fluctuating pH environments in Escherichia coli: Natural selection of generalists and specialists in transitions and acclimation. Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 80: 406-421. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Grants | 2008-2012 National Science Foundation Grant IOS-0748903 (Organism-Environment Interactions & Population Dynamics)- "Experimental Evolutionary Studies of Temperature Adaptation”– A. F. Bennett, P.I. B. Gaut, A. Long, Co-PIs. | |
| 2013-2016 National Science Foundation Grant IOS-1257427 (Organism-Environment Interactions)- "Connections among Genotype, Phenotype and Fitness in Escherichia coli High Temperature Lines”– B. Gaut, P.I. A.F. Bennett, A. Long, Co-PIs. | ||
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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 | 04/04/2013 | |