DrDarrin Hulsey

I am an assistant professor and study the evolution of complex morphological phenotypes. Although I have worked on a large number of aquatic organisms and phenotypes ranging from pectoral fin swimming in African Lake Malawi cichlids to anti-predator defenses in Central American snails, my research is largely concentrated on the feeding apparatus of fish. The jaws and teeth of fishes offer ideal organismal phenotypes for examining the forces that structure functional adaptation in a complex system.

By studying the mechanistic basis of fish feeding specialization, my research program is also able to circumvent the lack of replication that often plagues evolutionary studies of ecologically important historical phenomena. Determining why a particular species might be specialized to eat snails or other fish is particularly difficult if it happened only once. However, many feeding habits have often evolved repeatedly. Within the cichlid fishes for example, a huge number of historically independent and convergent trophic phenotypes have arisen through modifications of conserved musculoskeletal elements that comprise their highly kinetic skull. This replicated evolutionary framework provides the power to address broad questions concerning the mechanisms underlying the developmental genetics of ecological novelty.

Currently, I am working to incorporate genomic tools such as gene expression and quantitative genetics into microevolutionary analyses.