A central goal of integrative biology is to understand how genetic and environmental influences interact to produce well adapted phenotypes, yet our understanding of how underlying mechanisms bias evolutionary outcomes remains limited. Understanding patterns of mechanistic flexibility and constraint is particularly challenging for behavior, as the brain is a complex, hierarchically organized organ where constant integration of internal and external cues across levels is required to produce context-appropriate behavior. Not to mention this integration must occur across timescales, from minutes to months, to years. The goal of our research is to explore underlying mechanisms to understand how behaviors are generated, maintained, and modified by evolution. We believe that fundamental principles governing brains and behavior are most apparent in evolutionary and developmental contexts, and we therefore leverage natural behavioral diversity with technological advances that allow cutting edge work outside of traditional model systems. Specifically, we capitalize on the morphological, physiological, and behavioral diversity (and charisma!) of frogs to understand mechanisms of behavior and its evolution.

Parental care has independently evolved and diversified (including male-only, female-only, and biparental care), more frequently among anurans (frogs and toads) than any other tetrapod group. This diversity allows us to distinguish shared, core mechanisms from sex- and species- specific variation. Male uniparental care, in particular, provides a critical comparison to mechanistic research in mammals which is heavily female biased due to offspring dependence on mothers for milk. The goal of this research area is to understand how interactions across levels of biological organization drive similarities, differences, and occasional reversals in behavior between sexes. We take advantage of variation in care strategy between species and behavioral flexibility within species of poison frogs to address these questions.