Up
for auction "Metapopulations" Leticia Avilés Hand Signed Album Page.
ES-4404E
Leticia
Avilés is an evolutionary
biologist and ecologist who studies the evolution of social
behavior and the evolution of life history traits in metapopulations. Her
methods include a combination of theory and empirical work, the latter
using social
spiders as a model system. Her research on these organisms has
addressed questions such as why some spiders live in groups, why do they
exhibit highly female-biased sex ratios, and why have they evolved a system
where individuals remain in the natal nest to mate from generation to
generation. Avilés is perhaps best known for having recognized the importance
of social spiders as model systems to address basic questions in ecology and
evolution. In the process she discovered a number of social spiders previously
unknown to science, including a nomadic social spider whose colonies reproduce
by fission—Aebutina binotata, a social lynx spider—Tapinillus
sp., and a
social theridiid whose colonies exhibit a boom and bust pattern of growth and
adult females occur in two distinct size classes—Theridion nigroannulatum.
Her theoretical work has addressed questions such as the importance of
multilevel selection in the evolution of female-biased sex ratios, why
strongly inbred systems may evolve, and the importance of ecology and
nonlinear dynamics in social evolution One of Avilés's theoretical papers
addresses the question of how cooperation among nonrelatives can be maintained
despite the presence of freeloaders. Today, Avilés is a professor in the
Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia in Canada, where
she does research in ecology and evolution.