Brian D. Farrell

My lab and I work on the evolution of interactions between different kinds of tiny consumers, especially beetles and other arthropods, and their much larger hosts, such as plants or large animals. We use phylogenetics to understand the directions, rate, and consequences of evolutionary changes in the associations between tiny consumers and their hosts.

Many tiny consumers—whether insects, parasitic worms or viruses—are quite faithful over a long evolutionary time  to particular kinds of hosts, whether plants or animals. They become even more closely tied to feeding on parts of their hosts, such as roots, stems, leaves, or seeds (or particular animal organs or tissue types). In these ways, beetles evolve like other tiny consumers, specialized for attacking only one kind of organ even when they switch hosts. It is our hope that we find how this evolutionary stasis works through comparative studies of the genomic architectures of their various traits concerning interactions with hosts; to understand just why what seems so obvious is true. Despite their often strongly conserved association with a certain kind of host, it’s nevertheless easier for tiny consumers to change addresses than professions.

Curatorial Interests

Caribbean Biodiversity and Bioinformatics

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