UC Berkeley
3060 Valley Life Sciences Bldg #3140
Berkeley CA 94720-3140
Contact IB
Phone: (510) 642-3281
Fax: (510) 643-6264
Meet the IB Students
Chris DiVittorio, Fine and Ackerly Labs
Chris is interested in the evolution of plant traits and the maintenance of species diversity.
Dissertation
Chris is just beginning his dissertation research but is already investigating questions regarding morphological differences in plants. Are these functional and morphological differences adaptive? How did they evolve? What explains species distributions across landscapes?
He is currently studying variation in physiological and anti-herbivore strategies among co-occurring Mojave desert plants, and among species of Encelia in Baja California, a recently evolved genus of sunflowers with interesting distributions. Chris is also planning a project in the Peruvian Amazon to survey herbivore specialization and generalization strategies to investigate some of the mechanisms by which high tropical tree diversity may have originated, and whether herbivores may have coevolved with them.
Patterns, Travel, & Exploration
With his research, Chris can combine three of his favorite activities: travelling, being in the outdoors, and explaining patterns in nature. Since his research is based on natural history, he chooses his questions based on observations of interesting patterns in nature, and exploring is essential to his research. He also plans to travel to Mexico, Peru, and Chile to conduct his research.
Chris on Joining IB
"I chose IB because of it's unparalleled research resources (both faculty and infrastructure), because of the quality and friendliness of the other graduate students, and because it is close to many interesting potential field sites. And the food and music in the East Bay are great too."
On Berkeley:
"I like IB and Berkeley in general because there are experts from every field who can be tapped for knowledge. There isn't a question you could ask for which someone here hasn't already spent a lot of time thinking about ... Plus, it's in the middle of the greatest place to live in the world."
Chris and a colleague in Tomales Bay
For more information, visit:
March / April 2008
