Renee Duckworth

About

Renee Duckworth is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, a position she has held since 2023. Her research integrates ecological and evolutionary concepts with the ultimate goal of understanding how complex traits evolve. The central aims of her work are to understand how behavior evolves and how evolutionary changes in behavior influence population dynamics that ultimately shape macroevolutionary processes. To achieve these goals, she employs large-scale field experiments, empirical measures of lifetime fitness, field endocrinology, and molecular multi-generational pedigree reconstruction to investigate the dynamics of trait evolution, particularly in the context of range expansion and species coexistence in passerine birds. Her current projects include studying eco-evolutionary feedbacks between behavioral change and population density, investigating the proximate epigenetic basis of maternal effects on dispersal strategies, exploring neuroendocrine mechanisms and developmental constraints on personality traits, and conducting comparative studies across vertebrates on the evolution of traits that affect range limits and species coexistence. Her work aims to elucidate the mechanisms underlying behavioral stability, dispersal strategies, and trait evolution, contributing significantly to the understanding of evolutionary ecology and behavioral evolution.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Biology
• Developmental psychology
• Endocrinology
• Physics
• Ecology
• Genetics

Selected publications

• Scrutinizing assortative mating in birds

  PLoS Biology · 2019-02-21 · 49 citations

  articleOpen access

  It is often claimed that pair bonds preferentially form between individuals that resemble one another. Such assortative mating appears to be widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Yet it is unclear whether the apparent ubiquity of assortative mating arises primarily from mate choice ("like attracts like"), which can be constrained by same-sex competition for mates; from spatial or temporal separation; or from observer, reporting, publication, or search bias. Here, based on a conventional lite…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Multiple Environmental Stressors Induce an Adaptive Maternal Effect

  The American Naturalist · 2020 · 33 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  AbstractEvolution of adaptation requires predictability and recurrence of functional contexts. Yet organisms live in multifaceted environments that are dynamic and ever changing, making it difficult to understand how complex adaptations evolve. This problem is particularly apparent in the evolution of adaptive maternal effects, which are often assumed to require reliable and discrete cues that predict conditions in the offspring environment. One resolution to this problem is if adaptive maternal…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Maternally derived hormones, neurosteroids and the development of behaviour

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2021 · 23 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  In a wide range of taxa, there is evidence that mothers adaptively shape the development of offspring behaviour by exposing them to steroids. These maternal effects have major implications for fitness because, by shaping early development, they can permanently alter how offspring interact with their environment. However, theory on parent-offspring conflict and recent physiological studies showing that embryos rapidly metabolize maternal steroids have placed doubt on the adaptive significance of…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Linking Ecological Specialization to Its Macroevolutionary Consequences: An Example with Passerine Nest Type

  Systematic Biology · 2022-12-28 · 17 citations

  articleSenior author

  A long-standing hypothesis in evolutionary biology is that the evolution of resource specialization can lead to an evolutionary dead end, where specialists have low diversification rates and limited ability to evolve into generalists. In recent years, advances in comparative methods investigating trait-based differences associated with diversification have enabled more robust tests of this idea and have found mixed support. We test the evolutionary dead end hypothesis by estimating net diversifi…

  PublisherDOI

• The Special Case of Behavioral Plasticity?

  CRC Press eBooks · 2021 · 15 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  There have been many proponents of the idea that behavior plays a special role in evolution, yet there has been little agreement on the scope of this role and the mechanisms underlying it. In particular, progress in this area has been hampered by two main assumptions: (1) that behavior is more plastic than other traits and (2) that the role of behavior in evolution is limited to organisms with higher cognitive abilities. We argue that the range of plasticity of behavioral traits does not differ…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Maternal effects as a bridge between parental environment and offspring phenotype during range expansion

  NSF · $323k · 2009–2013

• International Research Fellowship Program: Evolution of Aggression as a Key to the Range Expansion of a Passerine Bird

  NSF · $151k · 2006–2009

• CAREER: ECO-EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS: WHAT ARE THE CAUSAL LINKS BETWEEN POPULATION DENSITY, NATURAL SELECTION AND PHENOTYPIC CHANGE?

  NSF · $761k · 2014–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Alexander V. Badyaev

  University of Arizona

  12 shared

• Geoffrey E. Hill

  Auburn University

  9 shared

• James C. Mouton

  6 shared

• Ahva L. Potticary

  University of Georgia

  5 shared

• Martin Bulla

  Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

  4 shared

• Stepfanie M. Aguillon

  University of California, Los Angeles

  4 shared

• Sharon R. Roberts

  TransUnion (United States)

  4 shared

• Mary T. Mendonça

  Auburn University

  3 shared

Awards & honors

• NSF CAREER (2014-2021)
• Fellow, American Ornithological Society (2017)
• Young Investigator Prize, American Society of Naturalists (2…
• Ned K. Johnson Young Investigator Award, American Ornitholog…
• Early Career Scientist Award, Evolutionary Ecology, Universi…

Similar researchers at University of Arizona

• Scott Saleskah-82
• Regis Ferriereh-63