The goal of the Stein Lab’s research program is to understand how interactions across levels of biological organization drive plastic responses across broad timescales, from individual experience, to intergenerational information, to evolutionary consequences. We take a highly integrative approach combining techniques from genomics, physiology, neuroscience, and behavior to investigate mechanisms underlying the production of complex, integrated phenotypes – and on an evolutionary scale, whether and how these plastic responses provide phenotypic trajectories on which selection can then act.
Iffert, R. Q.**, L. R. Stein. Effects of short- and long-term enrichment on brain and behavior in Trinidadian guppies. Ethology, e13436.
Marske, K.A., H.C. Lanier, C.D. Siler, A.H. Rowe, L.R. Stein. Perspective: Integrating biogeography and behavioral ecology to rapidly address biodiversity loss. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120: e2110866120.
Stein, L.R., K. Hoke. Parental and personal experience with predation risk interact in shaping phenotypes in a sex-specific manner. Animal Behaviour 191: 75-89.
Stein, L.R., A.M. Bell. The role of variation and plasticity in parental care during the adaptive radiation of threespine sticklebacks. Evolution 73: 1037-1044.
Stein, L.R., S.A. Bukhari, A.M. Bell. Personal and transgenerational cues are redundant at the phenotypic and molecular level. Nature Ecology and Evolution 2:1306-1311.