TIMOTHY A. MOUSSEAU

Timothy A. Mousseau

Professor of Biological Sciences
Ph.D., 1988, McGill University
803-777-8047
mousseau@sc.edu

Evolution of life histories; behavior; insect communication systems; maternal effects; diapause; quantitative genetics; plant-herbivore interactions.

My research is concerned with the evolution of life histories. Students in my lab are using several insect species, including crickets, grasshoppers and leaf miners to study the ecological significance of geographic variation in life histories, speciation, and plant-insect interactions. A diverse array of techniques is used to study evolution, including population and quantitative genetics, molecular genetics, advanced statistics, computerbased image analysis, and field ecological methods. Our objective is to understand why organisms have evolved the particular suite of characters and behaviors that they have, and to predict the course of future evolution. Of particular interest is the evolution of maternal effects and the estimation of heritable genetic variation in wild, undisturbed populations.

Selected Publications:

Mousseau, T.A., and D.A. Roff. 1987. Natural selection and the heritability of fitness components. Heredity 59:181-197.

Mousseau, T.A., and D.A. Roff. 1989. Adaptation to seasonality in a cricket: Patterns of phenotypic and genotypic variance in body size and diapause expression along a cline in season length. Evolution 43:1483-1496.

Gibbs, A., T.A. Mousseau, and J. Crowe. 1991. Genetic and acclimatory variation in biophysical properties of insect cuticle lipids. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, USA 88:7257-7260.

Mousseau, T.A., and H. Dingle. 1991. Maternal effects in insect life histories. Annual Review of Entomology 36:511-34.

Fox, C.W., K.J. Waddell, and T.A. Mousseau. 1995. Parental host plant affects offspring life histories in a seed beetle. Ecology 76: 402-411.

Olvido, A. and T.A. Mousseau. 1995. The effect of rearing environment on calling song plasticity in the striped ground cricket. Evolution 49: 1271-1277.

Mousseau, T.A. and D.A. Roff. 1995. Genetic and environmental contributions to geographic variation in the ovipositor length of a cricket. Ecology 76: 1473-1482.

Fox, C.W., M.S. Thakar, and T.A. Mousseau. 1997. Egg size plasticity in a seed beetle: an adaptive maternal effect. American Naturalist 149: 149-163.

Mousseau, T.A., K. Ritland, and D.D. Heath. 1998. A novel method for estimating heritability using molecular markers. Heredity 80:218-224.

BOOKS

Mousseau, T.A. and C.W. Fox. 1998. Maternal Effects As Adaptations. Edited volume, in press. Oxford University Press.

Mousseau, T.A., B. Sinervo, and J. Endler. 1999. Adaptive Genetic Variation in the Wild. Edited volume, in prep. Oxford University Press.

[This document last modified 17 July 2002]