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Leticia Avilés

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Leticia Avilés is an evolutionary biologist and ecologist who studies the evolution of social behavior and the evolution of life history traits in metapopulations. Her methods include a combination of theory and empirical work, the latter using social spiders as a model system. Her research on these organisms has addressed questions such as why some spiders live in groups,[1][2] why do they exhibit highly female-biased sex ratios,[3] and why have they evolved a system where individuals remain in the natal nest to mate from generation to generation.[4][5][6]

Career

Avilés is perhaps best known for having recognized the importance of social spiders as model systems to address basic questions in ecology and evolution. In the process she discovered a number of social spiders previously unknown to science, including a nomadic social spider whose colonies reproduce by fission—Aebutina binotata,[7][8] a social lynx spider—Tapinillus sp.,[9] and a social theridiid whose colonies exhibit a boom and bust pattern of growth and adult females occur in two distinct size classes—Theridion nigroannulatum.[10] Her theoretical work has addressed questions such as the importance of multilevel selection in the evolution of female-biased sex ratios,[3] why strongly inbred systems may evolve,[6] and the importance of ecology and nonlinear dynamics in social evolution.[11][12] One of Avilés’s theoretical papers addresses the question of how cooperation among nonrelatives can be maintained despite the presence of freeloaders.[13] Today, Avilés is a professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia in Canada, where she does research in ecology and evolution.[14]

Education

Avilés is a native of Ecuador.

  • Undergraduate: Licentiate in Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito.
  • Ph.D: Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 1992.
  • Postdoctoral Fellow: Research Training Group in the Analysis of Biological Diversification, University of Arizona, 1992–1994.

Awards

  • 2001 Fellow Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for Research
  • 1992 Young Investigator Award, American Society of Naturalists for Research

References

  1. ^ Avilés, L. and P. Tufiño. 1998. Colony size and individual fitness in the social spider Anelosimus eximius. The American Naturalist 152: 403–418..
  2. ^ Yip, E.C, K.S. Powers, and L. Avilés. 2008. Cooperative capture of large prey solves scaling challenge faced by large spider societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 105: 11818-11822..
  3. ^ a b Avilés, L. 1993. Interdemic selection and the sex ratio: a social spider perspective. The American Naturalist 142:320–345..
  4. ^ Avilés, L. 1997. Causes and consequences of cooperation and permanent sociality in spiders. In book: Evolution of Social Behaviour in Insects and Arachnids, Cambridge University Press, Eds: J. Choe and B. Crespi, pp.476–498..
  5. ^ Avilés, L. and T. Bukowski. 2006. Group living and inbreeding depression in a subsocial spider. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: 270: 157–163..
  6. ^ a b Avilés, L. and J. Purcell. 2012. The evolution of inbred social systems in spiders and other organisms: From short-term gains to long term evolutionary dead-ends? Invited synthesis paper, Advances in the Study of Behavior, 44: 99–133..
  7. ^ Avilés, L. 1993. Newly-discovered sociality in the neotropical spider Aebutina binotata Simon (Araneae, Dictynidae). Journal of Arachnology 21:184–193..
  8. ^ Avilés, L. 2000. Nomadic behaviour and colony fission in a cooperative spider: life history evolution at the level of the colony? Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 70: 325–339..
  9. ^ Avilés, L. 1994. Social behavior in a web building lynx spider, Tapinillus sp. (Araneae: Oxyopidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 51:163–176..
  10. ^ Avilés, L. W. Maddison, and I. Agnarsson. 2006. A new independently derived social spider with explosive colony proliferation and a female size dimorphism. Biotropica, 36: 743–753..
  11. ^ Avilés, L. 1999. Cooperation and non-linear dynamics: An ecological perspective on the evolution of sociality. Evolutionary Ecology Research, 1: 459–477.
  12. ^ Avilés, L., P. Abbot and A. Cutter. 2002. Population ecology, nonlinear dynamics, and social evolution I: Associations among nonrelatives. The American Naturalist 159: 115–127..
  13. ^ Avilés, L. 2002. Solving the freeloaders paradox: Genetic associations and frequency dependent selection in the evolution of cooperation among nonrelatives. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 99(22):14268-14273..
  14. ^ ["Department of Zoology." Leticia Avilés. University of British Columbia, 20 May 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2014. http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/laviles]
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