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Biographical
Sketch
Link
to Joe's Website
Joseph Travis is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor
of Biological Science at Florida State University and Dean
of the College of Arts & Sciences. He received his undergraduate
degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his doctoral
degree from Duke University. Travis joined the faculty in
Biological Science at Florida State in 1980 and rose through
the faculty ranks, serving as Chair of the Biological Science
Department chair from 1991-1997 and from 2000-2005 as Director
of the Program in Computational Science.
Travis’ research has been concentrated at the intersection
of ecology and evolutionary biology, focused particularly
on how ecological forces act as agents of natural selection
on life histories. His early work investigated how predators,
crowding, and environmental uncertainty selected for patterns
of growth and development in larval amphibians. Subsequent
work focused on how several selective agents - thermal regime,
salinity, predators, and mating preferences - acted in different
combinations in different populations to maintain striking
local differences among populations in the morphology, life
history and reproductive characters of the livebearing fish,
the sailfin molly (Poecilia latipinna). The chief subject
of his present research is how different patterns of numerical
dynamics in local populations exert different selective
pressures on the life history and mating behavior of the
least killifish, Heterandria formosa.
All of this research has balanced ecological with genetic
components. The recent work with least killifish populations
has included ecological studies of comparative numerical
dynamics, predator-prey interactions, and trophic structure;
it has also included genetic analyses of population structure,
paternity patterns in natural populations, and quantitative
characters. Students from the Travis lab have worked on
a variety of topics from species interactions in Amazonian
frogs to the genetic and environmental controls of color
pattern and retinal characteristics of bluefin killifish.
The National Science Foundation has supported Travis’
research since 1981 and awards from the NSF have helped
train twenty doctoral students (fourteen completed dissertations,
six current students), eight masters’ degree students,
and provided stipend support for nearly one hundred graduate
and undergraduate students since 1981. His current research
is supported by an award from the National Science Foundation
and an award from the Alabama Wildlife Commission.
Travis has served on the editorial boards of Journal of
Evolutionary Biology, Oecologia, Annual Review of Ecology
and Systematics, and The American Naturalist. He served
as editor of The American Naturalist from 1998 to 2002 and
as Vice-President (1994) and President (2005) of the American
Society of Naturalists. In 1991, he was elected a Fellow
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Travis has served on several program advisory panels for
the National Science Foundation: Population Biology, Research
Experiences for Undergraduates - Sites, and Undergraduate
Mentorships in Environmental Biology. He is currently serving
on the Advisory Council for the Directorate in Biological
Sciences and the cross-directorate Advisory Council for
Environmental Research and Education, which reports to NSF
Director Arden Bement. From 1999-2002, he served on the
Scientific Advisory Board of the National Center for Ecological
Analysis and Synthesis, chairing the board in 2001-2002.
He has served on several external review panels for biology
departments at various universities and continues to serve
the National Marine Fisheries Service as a member of the
Recovery Science Review Panel for Pacific Salmon.
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