Understanding links between the evolution of biodiversity and ecological interactions is
a fundamental challenge in biology. The Weber Lab asks questions at the intersection of
ecology and macroevolution using interactions between plants and arthropods.
They integrate a diverse set of approaches including comparative phylogenetic
methods, community & chemical ecology, microbiome sequencing, genomics, and
manipulative field experiments to ask how inter-species interactions shape the striking
diversity of form and function found across the tree of life. This talk will celebrate Dr.
Weber’s journey to tenure (woo!) and will present several case studies on how plant-
arthropod interactions are hypothesized to shape long-term macroevolutionary
trajectories of participating species.