Suzy C.P. Renn headshot

Professor of Biology
Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd
Portland OR 97202

renns@reed.edu
503-517-7967
CV

Integrative Animal Behavior & Comparative Genomics
The Evolution of Behavior in African Cichlid Fishes

Lofty Goal

Through the synthesis of comparative genomics with functional studies in behavior, physiology, and ecology, I aim to understand the genomic basis of behavior from an evolutionary perspective. By understanding the molecular basis of species-specific, and context-specific behaviors, I aim to determine the extent to which similar behaviors result from conserved, converged, and co-opted processes of evolution.

Model Organism(s)

The African Cichlid Fishes have experienced an incredibly rapid recent and repeated evolutionary radiation that has resulted in thousands of closely related species that exhibit a wealth of morphological and behavioral diversity despite very low genomic sequence divergence. In my lab we aim to identify the structural and functional differences among genomes that are responsible for this rich species diversity. (though to be honest, we focus on a few species)