Individual Listing

SPIETH HALL
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Waser, Nickolas M

Professor of Biology, Emeritus

College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Biology


Biography

 

Former Institution

University of Utah

Degrees

BA Biological Science 1970

Stanford University

PhD Biology 1977

University of Arizona

Awards

Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2001


Research Area

Research Specialization - population biology and evolutionary ecology.

Animal visitors such as bumble bees, solitary bees, and hummingbirds play a critical role in the sexual reproduction of many higher plants.  How do such pollinators choose flowers, and how does this translate into natural selection on discrete and quantitative traits such as flower color and shape or nectar production? What is the role of animal visitors in gene dispersal, and how does this influence spatial genetic structure of plant populations, the establishment of hybrid populations, and plant speciation? How do the "post-pollination" events beginning after dispersal of pollen and culminating in seed production modify the selection and gene flow caused by pollinators? From a community perspective, how are plant-pollinator interactions organized, how and why are they usually generalized, and what are the implications for resilience of food webs and conservation of endangered species? I am exploring these and related questions, mostly with plant-pollinator systems in the Rocky Mountains and southwestern deserts.

Publications

Waser, N.  M.  1978.  Competition for hummingbird pollination and sequential flowering in two Colorado wildflowers.  Ecology 59:934-944. 

Waser, N.  M.  and M.  V.  Price.  1983.  Pollinator behaviour and natural selection for flower colour in Delphinium nelsonii.  Nature 302:422-424. 

Waser, N.  M.  and D.  R.  Campbell.  in press.  Adaptive speciation in flowering plants.  In: Adaptive Speciation, eds.  U.  Dieckmann, H.  Metz, M.  Doebeli, and D.  Tautz, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 

Waser, N.  M., L.  Chittka, M.  V.  Price, N.  Williams, and J.  Ollerton.  1996.  Generalization in pollination systems, and why it matters.  Ecology 77:1043-1060.

Chittka, L.  and N.  M.  Waser.  1997.  Why red flowers are not invisible to bees.  Israel Journal of Plant Sciences 45:169-183. 

Waser, N.  M.  1998.  Pollination, angiosperm speciation, and the nature of species boundaries.  Oikos 82:198-201. 

Waser, N.  and L.  Chittka.  1998.  Bedazzled by flowers.  Nature 394:836-837. 

Chittka, L., J.  D.  Thomson, and N.  M.  Waser.  1999.  Flower constancy, insect psychology, and plant evolution.  Naturwissenschaften 86:361-377. 

Waser, N.  M., M.  V.  Price, and R.  G.  Shaw.  2000.  Outbreeding depression varies among cohorts of Ipomopsis aggregata planted in nature.  Evolution 5:485-491.

Waser, N. M., and C. F. Williams. 2001. Inbreeding and outbreeding. In:
Evolutionary Ecology: Concepts and Case Studies, eds. C. Fox, D. Roff, D.
Fairbairn, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, pp. 84-96.


Campbell, D. R., N. M. Waser and G. T. Pederson. 2002. Predicting
patterns of mating and rates of hybridization from pollinator behavior.
American Naturalist 159:438-450.