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B.A., Carleton College (1960)
Ph.D., University of Washington (1965)
D.Sc., University of Western Australia (1990)
Research Summary:Eric R. Pianka, the Denton A. Cooley Centennial Professor of Zoology at UT Austin, spent his life studying evolutionary ecology of lizards. His past and present research covers a broad range of topics pertaining to the ecology, biology and evolution of lizards, including rarity and responses to fire. An Australian skink and two lizard parasites are named after him.
His interests include population and community ecology, evolutionary ecology, natural history of desert lizards, resource partitioning, reproductive tactics, foraging theory, allocation, design constraints, thermoregulation, metapopulations, historical accident and biogeography, species diversity, macrodescriptors, pseudocommunities, phylogenetic systematics, computer simulation of model systems, emergent properties of ecological systems, metapopulations, indirect interactions among populations, disturbance, succession, and landscape ecology.
He trained 21 graduate students all of whom are autonomous scientists who not only obtain their own funding but also design, execute, and publish their own research (they also landed academic positions at major universities -- about half of them became tenured full profs and several have now retired). They work on a wide range of projects, both theoretical and empirical, as well as on a diversity of organisms including ants, butterflies, eigenvalues, grasshoppers, protozoans, frogs, fish and lizard communities, as well as various species of birds.
Pianka has worked on the fire succession cycle in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia and on phylogenetic systematic studies of Ctenotus skinks and varanid lizards. In collboration with Laurie Vitt, Kirk Winemiller, Nicolas Pelegrin, and Daniel Fitzgerald, we are building a periodic table of lizard niches. Currently, he is organizing a lifetime of research data on nearly 30,000 lizards consisting of nearly 100 species in 11 families from 3 continents to save this massive data set for future generations. These are the most comprehensive surveys of lizard assemblages carried out anywhere in the world.
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My interests are ever changing but have included population and community ecology, evolutionary ecology, natural history of desert lizards, resource partitioning, reproductive tactics, foraging theory, allocation, design constraints, thermoregulation, rarity, metapopulations, historical accident and biogeography, species diversity, macrodescriptors, pseudocommunities, phylogenetic systematics, computer simulation of model systems, emergent properties of ecological systems, indirect interactions among populations, disturbance, metapopulations, fire ecology, succession, landscape ecology, and using phylogenies to reconstruct probable ancestral states and deduce the course of evolution.
My graduate students are autonomous scientists who not only obtain their own funding but also design, execute, and publish their own research (they also land academic positions at major universities -- about half of them are now tenured). They work on a wide range of projects, both theoretical and empirical, as well as on a diversity of organisms including ants, beetles, butterflies, eigenvalues, fossil foraminifera, frogs, fruit flies, grasshoppers, fish and lizard communities, as well as various species of birds. They have performed extensive field work in many different countries, including Aruba, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Namibia, Peru, the Seychelles, South Africa, Venezuela, and Zambia.
I have studied the fire succession cycle in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia and am working on phylogenetic systematic studies of Ctenotus skinks, pygopodids, and varanid lizards. In collboration with Laurie Vitt, Kirk Winemiller, Nicolás Pelegrin, and Daniel Fitzgerald, we built a periodic table of lizard niches: Pianka, E. R., L. J. Vitt, N. Pelegrin, N., D. B. Fitzgerald, and K. O. Winemiller. 2017. Towards a Periodic Table of Niches or Exploring the Lizard Niche Hypervolume. American Naturalist, in press.
Press Release: http://www.amnat.org/an/newpapers/NovPianka.html
I am now in the process of organizing a lifetime of data on nearly 30,000 lizards consisting of nearly 100 species in 11 families from 3 continents to save this massive data set for future generations. These are the most comprehensive surveys of lizard assemblages carried out anywhere in the world.
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Google Scholar Link:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=E5y_8wIAAAAJ&hl=en
Books by Eric R. Pianka:
http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/Books.html
Read Evolurionary Ecology on Line:
http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/bio373/ERP-EvolEcol.html
About 200 papers, these since 2010:
2017 Pianka, E. R., L. J. Vitt, N. Pelegrin, N., D. B. Fitzgerald, and K. O. Winemiller. Towards a Periodic Table of Niches or Exploring the Lizard Niche Hypervolume. American Naturalist 190: 601-616. Press Release: http://www.amnat.org/an/newpapers/NovPianka.html
2017 Huey, R. B. and E. R. Pianka. Body temperature distributions of active diurnal lizards in three deserts: skewed up or skewed down? Functional Ecology 2017: 1-11.
2017 Muniz Leão, S., E. R. Pianka, and N. Pelegrin. 2018. Is there evidence for population regulation in amphibians and reptiles? Journal of Herpetology, in press.
2017 Grundler, M R., E. R. Pianka, N. Pelegrin, M. A. Cowan, D. L. Rabosky. Stable isotope ecology of a hyperdiverse community of scincid lizards from arid Australia. Plos One 12: DOI:10.1371.
2017 Pianka, E. R. Challenges facing today's lizard ecologists. Journal of Herpetology 51: 2-11.
2016 Pianka, E.R. & S.S. Sweet. 2016. Field Observations by Two American Varanophiles. In: Proceedings of the 2015 Interdisciplinary World Conference on Monitor Lizards (ed. M. Cota), pp. 1-68. Institute for Research and Development, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Bangkok, Thailand.
2016 Mesquita, D. O., G. C. Costa, R. Colli, T. B. Costa, D. B. Shepard, L. J. Vitt, and E. R. Pianka. Life history patterns of lizards of the world. The American Naturalist 187: 689-705.
2016 Mesquita, D. O., R. G. Faria, G. R. Colli, L. J. Vitt, and E. R. Pianka. Lizard life-history strategies. Austral Ecology 40: 1-5.
2015 Mesquita, D. O., Colli, G. R., Costa, G. C., Costa, T. B., Shepard, D. B., Vitt, L. J. and Pianka, E. R. Life history data of lizards of the world. Ecology 96:594. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/14-1453.1
2015 Winemiller, K. O., D. Fitzgerald, L. Bower, and E. R. Pianka. Functional traits, convergent evolution, and periodic tables of niches. Ecology Letters 18(8): 737–751.
2014 Pianka, E. R. Rarity in Australian Desert Lizards. Austral Ecology 39: 214-224.
2014 Pianka, E. R. Notes on a collection of lizards from the Eucla sand dunes in Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 30: 155-161.
2014 Pianka, E. R. Notes on the ecology and natural history of Ctenophorus reticulatus (Agamidae) in Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 30: 222-225.
2014 Pianka, E. R. Notes on the ecology and natural history of Ctenophorus caudicinctus (Agamidae) in Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 30: 226-230.
2014 Pianka, E. R. Notes on the ecology and natural history of two species of Egernia (Scincidae) in Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 30: 231-236.
2013 Pianka, E. R., Notes on the ecology and natural history of the rarely recorded gekkonid lizard Heteronotia binoei in the Great Victoria desert of Western Australia,Western Australian Naturalist 29:120-125
2013 Pianka, E. R., Notes on the natural history of the rarely recorded agamid lizard Caimanops amphiboluroides in Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 29:99-102
2013 Pianka, E. R., Notes on the ecology and natural history of two uncommon terrestrial agamid lizards Ctenophorus clayi and C. fordi in the Great Victoria desert of Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 29:85-93
2013 Pianka, E. R., Notes on the ecology and natural history of two uncommon arboreal agamid lizards Diporiphora paraconvergens and Lophognathus longirostris in the Great Victoria desert of Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 29:77-84
2013 Böhm, M. et al.,The conservation status of the world's reptiles. Biological Conservation 157:372-385
2012 Pianka, E. R., Can humans share spaceship earth? Amphibian and Reptile Conservation 6:1-24
2012 Pianka, E. R. and S. E. Goodyear., Lizard responses to wildfire in arid interior Australia: Long-term experimental data and commonalities with other studies. Austral Ecology 37:1-11
2011 Pianka, E. R., Notes on the ecology of some uncommon skinks in the Great Victoria Desert. Western Australian Naturalist 28:50-60
2011 Pianka, E. R. Scientific methods and human knowledge. Pp. 1-7 in M. Hutchins, V. Geist,and E. R. Pianka, eds. Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, Evolution. Gale Publishing Group.
2011 Pianka, E. R. Convergent evolution and ecological equivalence. Pp. 235-242 in M. Hutchins, V. Geist, and E. R. Pianka, eds. Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, Evolution. Gale Publishing.
2011 Pianka, E. R. Notes on the natural history of the tiny skink Menetia greyi. Western Australian Naturalist 28: 12-17.
2011 Pianka, E. R. and C. A. Harp. Notes on the natural history of Buchanan’s snake-eyed skink Cryptoblepharus buchananii in arid Western Australia. Western Australian Naturalist 28: 43-49.
2010 Harp, C. A., S. E. Goodyear, and E. R. Pianka. Ctenotus helenae (Helen’s Comb-Eared Skink) Hermaphroditism. Herpetological Review 41: 353-354.
2010 Pianka, E. R. Notes on the ecology of four species of pygopodid lizards in the Great Victoria Desert. Western Australian Naturalist 27: 175-181.
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Guggenheim Fellow, 1978
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1981
Fulbright Senior Research Scholar, Australia, 1990
Dean's Fellow, Fall Semester 1998
Big XII Faculty Fellowship, 2000-2001
Dean's Fellow, Fall Semester 2003
Best non-fiction book, Oklahoma Center for the Book, 2004
Distinguished Herpetologist, Herpetologists' League, 2004
Herpetologists League session titled "Ecology and Evolution of Reptiles: A Tribute to Eric Pianka”, 2004
Distinguished Lecturer, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Lecturer Award at Indiana
University Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), 2004
Featured in a 2004 Russian book "Faces of Ecology" by G. C. Rosenberg, 2004
Lawrence Slobodkin Lecture in Evolution, State University of New York, Stony Brook, 2005.
Grand Prize, Ninth Annual UT Coop Robert W. Hamilton Book Awards, March 23, 2005.
Engraved Stone in Oklahoma Heritage Walkway, Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, Norman, 2005
Inaugural Address for Ecology, Evolution and Behavior program, Texas A & M. University, 2005
Distinguished Scientist, Texas Academy of Science, 2006
Distinguished Invited Speaker to the Lucian Symposium, St. Edward's University, Austin, Texas, 2006
Honorary Member, French Varanid Association, 2008
Carleton College Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Achievement, 2010
Fellow, Ecological Society of America, 2013
American Academy of Arts and Science, elected 2014
Auffenberg Medal for excellence in monitor research, 2015. Monitor Lizard Specialist Group
Eminent Ecologist, Ecological Society of America, 2015
American Society of Naturalists Symposium: Latitudinal Gradients in Species Diversity: 50 years since Pianka, 2016
Historical Comment: "Latitudinal Gradients in Species Diversity": Reflections on Pianka's 1966 article and a look forward. The American Naturalist, 2017
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1965: Stanford University; University of Washington; University of Illinois (Urbana)
1966: Princeton University; University of California at Berkeley (A. A. A. S. Meetings); Washington University (St. Louis)
1968: Princeton University; University of Texas at Austin; Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama)
1969: University of Missouri (Columbia)
1971: Stanford University; University of California at Los Angeles
1972: Texas A. and M. University; Kansas State University (Manhattan); University of Texas Marine Science Institute
1973: University of California (Irvine); University of California at Los Angeles; Princeton University; University of Maryland (College Park)
1974: University of Connecticut; Yale University; Colorado State University; North Texas State University; Duke University; University of California at Berkeley
1975: Utah State University (two lectures); Baylor University; Carleton College (two lectures); Oregon State University (Corvallis A. I. B. S. Meetings); University of Oslo (Norway); University of Lund (Sweden)
1976: University of Texas Marine Science Institute (Port Aransas); Institute of Ecology (Guild Workshop, Denver); Namib Desert Research Station (Gobabeb, Namibia); Ohio State University (Colloquium Speaker in Biological Sciences); University of Montana, Graduate Student Selected Speaker, (two seminars); Chairman at Ecological Society of America meetings in New Orleans
1977: University of Nebraska (Lincoln); University of Texas at Austin, Paleobiology Discussion Group; University of Florida (Symposium co-chairman and speaker); University of Minnesota
1978: State University of New York at Albany; University of Oslo (Norway); University of Kansas, Lawrence (Visiting Professor); University of British Columbia (Vancouver); University of Calgary; Miami University (Ohio); Wayne State University, Graduate Student Selected Speaker; University of Michigan; University of Western Australia, Nedlands (two seminars); Second International Congress of Ecology, Jerusalem (two lectures)
1979: Kansas State University (Manhattan); University of Colorado (Boulder)
1980: University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada); University of Florida (Gainesville); Uppsala University (Uppsala, Sweden); University of Oslo (Oslo, Norway); North Texas State University (Denton); Oklahoma State University; American Society of Zoologists (Seattle)
1981: Visiting Professor, University of Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras and Mayaguez
1982: University of California, Davis
1983: University of Alaska, Fairbanks
1985: Palm Springs Desert Museum; University of Vermont, Burlington
1986: Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago
1987: Brock University, St. Catherine, Ontario; Trinity University, San Antonio; Savannah River Ecology Laboratory; University of Tennessee; Texas A. and. M. University; Universität der Zürich.
1988: University of Kansas, Lawrence; Trinity University, San Antonio; University of California at Irvine; University of California at Los Angeles.
1989: Dean's Speaker, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville; San Diego State University; First World Congress of Herpetology, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom (Plenary Lecture on Community Ecology); Goldfield's Naturalists' Club, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
1990: Invited Speaker, Symposium on "Indirect effects in ecological networks," Fifth International Congress of Ecology, Yokohama, Japan (declined for lack of funds); University of Western Australia, Nedlands
1991: University of Western Australia, Nedlands; C.S.I.R.O., Alice Springs; South Australian Museum; University of New England; University of Queensland; Queensland University of Technology; University of Wollongong; C.S.I.R.O., Canberra; Sydney University; World Health Organization, Kobe, Japan; University of Siena (Italy).
1992: Oak Ridge National Laboratory; York University, Canada, Graduate Student Selected Speaker; Department of Zoology and Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma; First International Congress on Lacertids of the Mediterranean Basin, University of Athens, Greece.
1993: Second World Congress of Herpetology, Adelaide
1994: Second World Congress of Herpetology, Adelaide; Second Venezuelan Congress of Ecology, Guanare; Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica, Taiwan (Plenary lecture in Symposium on biodiversity); Stazione Zoologica "Anton Dohrn", Napoli, Italy; Temple Junior College (Sigma Xi)
1995: Texas A. and M. University, Graduate Student Selected Speaker; Edith Cowan University, Joondalup; Edith Cowan University, Mt. Lawley.
1997: University of Oregon, Eugene.
1998: University of Southeastern Louisiana; Seventh International Congress of Ecology (Intecol) Meetings, Florence, Italy.
1999: Department of Marine Biology of Texas A&M University at Galveston; Keynote address, 19th Annual Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference, Kent State University, Graduate Student Selected Speaker; Plenary lecture, 10th Ordinary General Meeting of Societas Europaea Herpetologica, Natural History Museum of Crete, Irakleio; Plenary lecture, Asia-Pacific Congress on the Biology of the Environment, National University of Singapore.
2000: Opening address, "A General Review of Zoological Trends During the 20th Century" 18th International Congress of Zoology, Athens, Greece.
2001: Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma; University of New Orleans; BOA group and ALBA, Norrkoping, Sweden; University of Guelph
2002: University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Graduate Student Selected Speaker; Albertson College of Idaho; University of Western Australia; Northern Territory University, Darwin; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Herpetologie und Terrarienkunde, Bad Orb, Germany
2003: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Graduate Student Selected Speaker; University of California, Irvine; University of California, Riverside
2004: Austin Herpetological Society; Keynote address, Distinguished Herpetologist, University of Oklahoma, Norman; Reflections, last talk in Herpetologists League session titled "Ecology and Evolution of Reptiles: A Tribute to Eric Pianka"; Distinguished Lecturer, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Lecturer award at Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW)
2005: Lawrence Slobodkin Lecture in Evolution, State University of New York, Stony Brook, Graduate Student Selected Speaker, University of Texas Dean's Scholars Friday Lunch,College of Natural Science honors program; Texas A & M. University Inaugural Address for Ecology, Evolution and Behavior program; Third multidisciplinary world conference on monitor lizards, Alexander Koenig Museum, Bonn, Germany.
2006: University of Southeastern Louisiana; Keynote address, Texas Academy of Science; Distinguished Invited Speaker to the Lucian Symposium, St. Edward's University; University of Texas at Arlington, Graduate Student Selected Speaker.
2007: University of Victoria, British Columbia, Graduate Student Selected Speaker.
2008: University of California at Santa Barbara; University of Texas Dean's Scholars Friday Lunch, College of Natural Science honors program; University of Washington, W.T. Edmondson Memorial Lecture, Graduate Student Selected Speaker.
2009: University of Idaho; 4th Brazilian Meeting of Herpetology; Texas Herpetological Society; University of Louisiana, Lafayette, 10th Graduate Student Symposium, Graduate Student Selected Speaker.
2011: Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin (two seminars). Invited Commentator, Festsprach for Henry S. Horn, Princeton University. Graduate Program in Ecology, Dept. Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia.
2012: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Distinguished Speaker Series. University of Wyoming, Program in Ecology, Graduate Student Invited Speaker.
2013: University of Texas at Austin, Herpetology (two seminars).
2014: University of Texas at Austin, Herpetology
2015: Keynote address, Interdisciplinary World Conference on Monitor Lizards, Phranakhon Rajabhat University, Bangkok; University of South Florida, Integrative Biology, Graduate Student Invited Speaker.
2016: Introduction: American Socirty of Naturalists’ Symposium: Latitudinal Gradients in Species Diversity: 50 years since Pianka. ASN Annual Meeting, Asilomar, California.
2017: Towards a Periodic Table of Niches. Keynote address at Ecological Integration Symposium. Texas A & M. University, Graduate Student Invited Speaker.
2017: Towards a Periodic Table of Niches or Exploring the Lizard Niche Hypervoiume. Australian Herpetological Society. Invited Speaker, Sydney, Australia.
2018: Keynote Speaker, Symposium on the Biology of Lizards at the Chiricahua Desert Museum in Rodeo, New Mexico.
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- During his nearly half century teaching career, Pianka has taught behavior, ecology, and evolution to hundreds of graduate students and many thousand undergraduates. Here's a list of classes he has taught:
- Biology 301M. Ecology, Evolution, and Society
- Biology 213. Diversity and Ecology
- Biology 304. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- Biology 318. Ecology and Population Biology
- Biology 357. Evolutionary Ecology
- FS 301. The Human Overpopulation Crisis
- Zoology 370C. Herpetology
- Zoology 384L.1 - Population Ecology
- Zoology 384L.3 - Herpetology
- Zoology 384L - Ecology of Metapopulations
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LIST OF PIANKA'S GRADUATE STUDENTS:
Raymond B. Huey (M. A., 1969) Ecological relations of sympatric Phyllodactylus in the Sechura desert of Peru. Ph.D., Harvard University (1975); Miller Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Univ. California at Berkeley; Professor, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. W. Frank Blair was actually Huey's supervisor, but I was on his committee and we spent a lot of time together before he became my research assistant and we studied the ecology of Kalahari Desert lizards. He and I both consider our mentor-pupil relationship as an unofficial sponsorship. Ray retired in 2013 (HueyFest) and is now Professor and Chair Emeritus at the Department of Biology at the University of Washington.
Richard D. Howard (M. A., 1972). Influence of sexual selection and interspecific competition on mockingbird song. Ph.D., Univ. of Michigan (1977); Professor, Purdue University.
Jos. J. Schall (Ph. D., 1976). Comparative ecology of sympatric parthenogenetic and bisexual species of Cnemidophorus. Professor, University of Vermont, Burlington.
Nancy T. Burley (Ph. D., 1977). Mate choice and sexual Selection in the pigeon, Columba livia. Assistant Professor, McGill University, 1977-1979; Assistant Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1979-1984; Associate Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1984-1989; Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1989-1991; Professor, Univ. California, Irvine.
Anthony J. Joern (Ph. D., 1977). Co-sponsored with L. R. Lawlor, Guild and community structure in primary consumers: Resource utilization in arid grassland grasshopper communities (Orthoptera: Acrididae). Professor, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Professor, Kansas State University, Manhattan.
Mary Lee Wissink George (Ph. D., 1980). Hummingbird foraging behavior and pollination energetics of Malvaviscus arboreus.
Duncan Alexander MacKay (Ph. D., 1982). Co-sponsored with M. Singer, Search behavior and host plant selection by ovipositing Euphydryas editha butterflies. Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia
Christopher Schneider (M. S., 1987). Comparative ecology of two guilds of shorebirds on the south Texas coast. (Ph. D., University of California at Berkeley, 1993). Associate Professor, Boston University.
Kirk O. Winemiller (Ph. D., 1987). Co-sponsored with C. Hubbs, Tests of ecomorphological and community level convergence among neotropical stream fish assemblages. Fulbright Research Scholar to Zambia, 1988-89. Research Associate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Department of Zoology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1989-1992. George Mercer Award, Ecological Society of America, 1992. Regents Professor, Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A and M University.
Mitchell A. Leslie (M. A., 1988). The evolutionary omission: Lizard displays and evolution.Curator, Texas Memorial Museum, Austin, Texas, 1988-91. Editor, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Austin, Texas, 1991-97. Science Writer, Stanford University Medical School. Currently a freelance science writer for Science magazine, among others.
Daniel T. Haydon (Ph. D., 1992). Stability and complexity revisited. Postdoctoral research associate, Oxford University, U.K.; University of British Columbia; Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Midlothian, Scotland; Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Professor, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland. Zoological Society of London's Scientific Medal; awarded to a scientist under the age of 40 years, for distinguished work in Zoology, 2006. Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2008. Director, Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health and Comparative Medicine.
Ray R. Radtkey (Ph. D., 1993). Co-sponsored with M. Singer, Evaluating the role of ecological interactions in species evolution: two examples combining historical and ecological information. Postdoctoral Research Associate, Univ. Calif. San Diego, La Jolla. Currently a researcher with Nanogen, Inc.
Gad Perry (Ph.D., 1995). The evolutionary ecology of lizard foraging: A comparative study. Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Ohio State University; Postdoctoral, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Associate Professor, Texas Tech University.
Monica Swartz (Ph.D., 1997). Behavioral and population ecology of the army ant Eciton burchelli and ant-following birds. Fulbright to Costa Rica, 1993-94. Taught field courses in Amazonian Peru for Evergreen College, Olympia, Washington, and in neotropical Ecuador for Boston University. Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of California, Riverside, 2002-2004. Lead Scientist for the Coachella Valley Water District. Director,Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve, Associate Professor of Biology, St. Edwards University, Austin, Texas.
Nancy Heger (Ph. D., 2000). The impact of size on thermal efficiency: size related costs anD benefits in Varanus giganteus. Taught at Southwest Texas University; Senior Systems Analyst at the University of Texas; Assistant Professor, Cameron University; GIS Analyst, Texas Parks and Wildlife.
L. Ramakrishnan (Ph. D., 2000). Environmental variability and ecological dynamics in spatially structured populations. Taught at the University of Texas before returning to India. Currently population scientist and Country Director of 'Solidarity and ActioN against the HIV Infection in India' in Chennai, India.
W. Bryan Jennings (Ph. D., 2002). Phylogeny, ecology, and the nature of cladogenesis in Australian pygopodid lizards. Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Washington, Seattle, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. Assistant Professor at Humbolt State University. Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Vertebrados, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
Wendy L. Hodges (Ph. D., 2002). Phrynosoma systematics, comparative reproductive ecology, and conservation of a Texas native. Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of California, Riverside; 2003-2005 NSF Bioinformatics Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of California, Riverside. Assistant Professor, University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
Carla G. Guthrie (Ph. D., 2005). Co-sponsored with L. E. Gilbert. Diversity in Motion: The influence of dispersal and metacommunity spatial structure in Heliconia phyteltomata. Natural Resource Specialist, Texas Water Development Board.
Stephen E. Goodyear (M. A., 2011). Variation in diet and habitat resource use in desert adapted lizards in Western Australia.
Alison M. Gainsbury (Ph. D., 2012). Brazilian Central Cerrado Lizards in Introduced Eucalyptus Plantations: Human Mediated Habitat Disturbance Effects from Community Diversity to Population Divergence. Alison did a postdoc with Shai Meir at Tel Aviv University working on global associations between climate, net primary productivity and lizard diets. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg.
Davi Pantoja (Ph. D., 2014), Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília
Samuel Ribeiro (Ph. D., 2015), Departamento de Sistemática e Ecologia, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa
LIST OF PIANKA POSTDOCTORALS
Diane W. Davidson, University of Arizona, 1974-75 (now at the University of Utah)
Allen R. Lewis, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, 1985-86
Daniel T. Haydon, University of Texas at Austin, 1992-93
Cheong H. Diong, Biology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 1999
Monica Swartz, University of Texas at Austin, 2000-2002
L. Ramakrishnan, University of Texas at Austin, 2000-2003
Cristiano Nogueira, Universidade de Brasilia, 2010-2011
Daniel O. Mesquita, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 2013-2014
Nicolás Pelegrin, Laboratorio de Ecología y Conservación de la Herpetofauna, Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal, (IDEA, CONICET-UNC) and Centro de Zoología Aplicada (UNC). Rondeau 798 X5000AVP Córdoba, Argentina.
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