Research

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We work towards understanding both the selective forces shaping biodiversity and the genetic processes that translate natural selection into evolutionary changes. Our research often focuses on interactions at different levels of biological organization from interactions between loci (epistasis and coadaptation), to behavioral interactions among individuals (social networks and indirect effects), to coevolutionary interactions among species (arms races).

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Members of my laboratory group work on a wide variety of systems and questions. Whether they develop their own research systems, or work within one of the larger systems (coevolution between snakes and newts and the evolution of social behavior in forked fungus beetles) that our group studies, I encourage students to come up with their own questions and projects. Most of my lab conducts at least some of their research at the Mountain Lake Biological Station, where I am the Director and spend most of my time in the summers.

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View Butch's 2021 Presidential Address for the American Society of Naturalists:
 

In Defense of Pre-Hypothesis Science