RESEARCH

RUBENSTEIN LAB

integrative organismal biology in a changing world

integrating organismal biology

through studies that combine behavior, ecology & evolution

with those of underlying molecular & neuroendocrine mechanisms

past systems

current systems

World Map

HOSP

BTBW

house sparrows

burying beetle

Wren

Goby

warblers

burying beetles

Synalpheus

wrens

starlings

gobies

marine iguana

Florisuga

weavers

Egernia

Wasp

snapping shrimps

marine igaunas

hummingbirds

Egernia lizards

pebble mice

wasps

mole rats

spanning molecules to populations

from invertebrates to vertebrates & across levels of analysis,

scales of biological organization & the globe

social evolution

causes and consequences of sociality

environmental uncertainty and social evolution

Work in cooperatively breeding starlings, weavers, wasps, pebble mice and burying beetles examines how unpredictable climate variation influences the evolution of animal societies, including its effects on intraspecific cooperation as well as intra- and interspecific competition.

We are examining the evolution of social diversity in snapping shrimps, lizards and birds by quantifying life history variation, assessing interspecific differences in social organization among closed related species and exploring the key evolutionary transitions among social states using phylogenetic comparative methods.

evolutionary transitions in social organization

molecular and neural mechanisms of social behavior

We are studying the mechanistic bases of caste differentiation, social phenotypes and social decision making in snapping shrimps, burying beetles and lizards by examining role- and population-specific patterns of gene expression, signatures of genetic and epigenetic variation, brain architecture and structural variants in the genome.

We are studying how competition influences the evolution of social signaling and patterns of sexual dimorphism in starlings and pebble mice. We are also examining how social living influences the evolution of genome architecture by studying the relationships among social organization, genome size and transposable elements in snapping shrimps and mole rats.

phenotypic and genotypic consequences of sociality

cooperation and ecological dominance

We are exploring how cooperative behavior in birds, burying beetles and snapping shrimps influences competitive ability against conspecifics, niche breadth and range expansion, ecological generalism vs. specialism and ecological dominance.

environmental coping

behavioral, physiological and molecular adaptations to global change

adaptation along environmental gradients

We are examining stress physiology, immune function, color evolution and patterns of genetic and epigenetic variation in populations of starlings along temperature and precipitation gradients in Africa. We are also studying social variation (cooperation and conflict) along altitudinal gradients in Asian burying beetles, and along temperature gradients in Australian mice.

We are studying the behaviors and genomic mechanisms that underlie local adaptation in burying beetles. Our focus is on the role of structural variants (inversions, copy number variants and transposable elements) in the evolution of behavioral polymorphisms (reproductive timing and cooperation) and supergenes that characterize population-level differences despite high gene flow.

genome architecture and local adaptation

epigenetics and adaptive plasticity

We are examining how developmental conditions influence social phenotypes, stress physiology and fitness later in life, and we are exploring DNA methylation as one potential mechanism underlying this relationship in starlings. Although we emphasize the vertebrate stress axis, we also look globally at patterns of DNA methylation across the entire genome.

Using game theory and simulation modeling we are exploring the evolution of strategies to cope with environmental uncertainty. We are also developing a framework that predicts evolutionary responses to environmentally-driven fluctuating selection, and using it to explore the evolution of physiological coping mechanisms, as well as their genetic and epigenetic architectures.

a framework for environmental coping

Columbia University

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology

1014 Schermerhorn Extension, MC 5557

1200 Amsterdam Avenue

New York, NY 10027

[email protected] | 1-212-854-4881

90 Morningside Drive (office) | 851-854 Schermerhorn Extension (lab)

Lorem

© 2002-2025 | Dustin R. Rubenstein

RUBENSTEIN LAB