Dr. Leticia Avilés

Research in the Avilés Animal Diversity and Interactions Lab addresses the factors that shape the structure of animal communities and their interactions —group living, cooperation, predation, parasitism—with a focus on arthropods and the tropical Andes as a natural laboratory. Our earlier work used social spiders as a model system to address questions at the intersection between ecology and evolution, including the causes and consequences of social evolution, multilevel selection, the evolution of local population dynamics in metapopulations, and the short- and long- term consequences of inbreeding. Ongoing projects asses the interplay between abiotic factors, vegetation structure, and biotic interactions in shaping the composition of insect, spider, and bird communities, mainly on the tropical Andes. We use a variety of research tools, including fieldwork in temperate and tropical areas, computer simulation, analytical modelling, and laboratory work employing behavioural and molecular techniques.