H. Frederick Nijhout, Biology

I am broadly interested in regulatory processes in development and in the evolution of developmental mechanisms.

There are three main lines of research ongoing in my laboratory. The first deals with the control of polyphenic development in insects. In polyphenic development, hormones control a switch between alternative developmental pathways so the individuals with identical genotypes can develop dramatically different phenotypes. My studies and those of my students have dealt with the control of sequential polyphenisms in various insects.

The second line of research deals with the development and evolution of pattern formation mechanisms. This research has focussed on the development and evolution of pigment patterns in butterflies. Ongoing research deals with the genetics of mimicry and with the elucidation of how intercellular signals regulate the precise spatial pattern of pigment synthesis.

The third line of research deals with the genetics and evolution of complex traits. Complex traits are features that are controlled by many genes and whose inheritance does not follow the simple rules of Mendelian genetics. We are working on methods of computing complex phenotypes based on the characteristic of developmental systems and on methods for deducing and predicting the (usually variable) correlations between genetic change (such as mutations) and the phenotype. We are particularly interested in how genetic variation affects the development and evolution of complex traits and in the evolution of developmental stability.