About
As an evolutionary ecologist, I am broadly interested in the forces that initiate and maintain phenotypic and genetic diversity. In particular, I investigate the factors that affect trade-offs (i.e. when a population adapted to one environment suffers a fitness cost in another environment). Major questions driving my research include:
To address these questions, I use a combination of field, experimental, and genomic techniques to investigate the relationship between genotype, phenotype, and fitness using multiple experimental plant systems.
Currently, I am a postdoctoral research associate in John Burke's lab at the University of Georgia Department of Plant Biology. I received my PhD at Michigan State University in Doug Schemske's lab with a dual degree in Plant Biology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior.
- What are the mechanisms underlying fitness trade-offs?
- Is adaptation primarily driven by many genes of small effect or a few genes of large effect?
- How does the strength and form of selection influence the genetic architecture of adaptation?
To address these questions, I use a combination of field, experimental, and genomic techniques to investigate the relationship between genotype, phenotype, and fitness using multiple experimental plant systems.
Currently, I am a postdoctoral research associate in John Burke's lab at the University of Georgia Department of Plant Biology. I received my PhD at Michigan State University in Doug Schemske's lab with a dual degree in Plant Biology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior.
Contactedittmar [at] uga [dot] edu
News
10/2017: My first Leptosiphon paper has been accepted at the Journal of Heredity! It will be published in a symposium issue about local adaptation. See the advance view here
08/2017: I started my postdoc at UGA! 06/2017: Getting ready to defend: Friday, June 9th at 11am in PLB 247! Hard to believe the time has almost come! 04/2017: Exciting news - I've accepted a postdoc position in John Burke's lab at the University of Georgia! I will be studying the genetic basis of abiotic stress tolerance in wild and domesticated sunflowers. I'm incredibly excited for the opportunity to work with such a great lab and the fantastic community of researchers at UGA! I'm also looking forward to working with sunflowers due to their having well-developed genomic resources, lots of cool adaptations, and the existence of both domesticated and wild species in this group! So many cool things to explore! 9/2016: I'm beginning my last year as a graduate student! Currently on the lookout for postdocs and writing writing writing!!! 7/2016: I had an amazing opportunity to attend and present at the American Genetics Association President's Symposium in Asilomar, CA. The focus of the symposium was "Local adaptation, from phenotype to genotype to fitness". It was very exciting to hear the work presented by the speakers there (of whom I greatly admire) and to get feedback on my own work! 6/2016: I traveled to the Evolution meeting in Austin Texas to present results from my field reciprocal transplant studies! 4/2016: A paper (co-written by Chris Oakley, Billie Gould, Jeff Conner, Doug Schemske, and myself) was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B! This was a really fun paper to write and stemmed from discussions we had in the Evolution Discussion Group seminar (spring 2015), led by Jeff. See it here! 5/2015: I wrapped up the 2015 field season, which will be my final one as a graduate student. 12/2014: I'm beginning a 4th field season with Leptosiphon! This year, along with seedlings, I put seeds in the field to look at whether I can observe differences in germination patterns among the populations. 9/2014: My paper, 'Flowering time QTL in natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana and implications for their adaptive value' was published in Molecular Ecology! See it here! 5/2014: My 2014 field season recently wrapped up! This was my largest field experiment yet! Stay tuned for the results! 2/2014: I received an NSF doctoral dissertation improvement grant (DDIG) for my field research on Leptosiphon! The money will help me continue to travel to California to conduct field experiments and further investigate the physiological mechanisms of serpentine adaptation. 1/2014: I traveled to the American Naturalist meeting in Asilomar to present the results of two years of reciprocal transplant studies in the field. I also began year #3 at Jasper Ridge and planted 1800 seedlings in the field! |