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Vince Eckhart
Associate Professor of Biology
Ph.D. 1991, University of Utah; Postdoctoral Fellow, 1992-1996, University of
California, Berkeley, and Cornell University, Plant Ecology and Evolution.
Tel: 641-269-4354; FAX: 641-269-4285;
Office: Science 1818; Email: eckhart@grinnell.edu
Personal webpage
Although flowering plants are famous for their diversity of life histories and
reproductive systems, this diversity has considerable structure. Particular
features ave evolved many times independently, in distantly related plants, and
some features are much more common than others. For example, most species
of flowering plants are hermaphroditic, with each individual capable of reproducing
as both a male and a female parent. The other reasonably common sexual systems
are dioecy (separate males + females) and gynodioecy (females + hermaphrodites).
Why is hermaphroditism the most common system, and why are some systems
(e.g., androdioecy: males + hermaphrodites) vanishingly rare?
My students and I try to identify environmental factors that determine how
natural selection shapes plant reproduction and life history, and to understand
how genetics, physiology, and development limit evolutionary responses to selection.
We apply an integrative approach that includes studies of resource-allocation
theory, transmission genetics, population genetics, quantitative genetics, natural
selection, geographic distribution and geographic variation, pollination biology,
experimental population biology, and physiological ecology. Current projects include
studies of reproductive systems and life history in the California wildflower
Clarkia xantiana and studies of the population biology of the Iowa wildflowers
Linum rigidum and L. sulcatum.
- Fausto JA Jr, Eckhart VM, Geber MA. in press. Reproductive assurance and the evolutionary ecology of self-pollination in Clarkia xantiana (Onagraceae). American Journal of Botany.
- Eckhart, V.M., and M.A. Geber. 1999. Character variation and geographic distribution of Clarkia xantiana (Onagraceae): Flowers and phenology distibguish two subspecies. Madrono 46:117-125.
- Eckhart, V.M. and J. Seger 1999. Phenological and developmental costs of male sex function in hermaphroditic plants. pp. 195-214 in: Vuorisalo, T., and P. Mutakainen (eds.) Life history evolution in plants. Kluwer Academic, Doordrecht.
- Fall
BIO-150: Introduction to Biological Inquiry, "The Sex Life of Plants"
BIO-305: Evolution of the Iowa Flora, with Lab
- Spring
BIO-252: Organisms, Evolution and Ecology, with Lab
BIO-395: Special Topic, "Spatial Ecology"
- Tutorial 100: Climate Change Policy
- Tutorial 100: Guns, Germs & Steel
- Biology 150: Introduction to Biological Inquiry "The Sex Life of Plants"
- Biology 252: Organisms, Evolution and Ecology
- Biology 305: Evolution of the Iowa Flora, with Lab
- Biology 368: Ecology
- Biology 395: Evolution of Iowa Flora
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