Colleen Webb

Associate Professor
Office: Anatomy/Zoology Building E334A
Phone: 970-491-4289
Website: http://rydberg.biology.colostate.edu/ctwebb
Education: Ph.D., Cornell University
Email: Colleen.Webb@ColoState.EDU

I am broadly interested in the evolution of traits important in ecological interactions and in how such evolution shapes ecosystems. I use a theoretical framework to study how selection at the individual-level affects the extinction and persistence of populations or ecosystems. For example, I have investigated how the indirect effects of selection can affect a population's environment, resulting in decreased mean fitness and extinction. Currently, I am looking at how ecosystem level characteristics, like modularity, enhance the robustness of ecosystems to disturbance (resiliency), and whether these higher level characteristics can evolve from selection at the individual level. I use a variety of analytical and simulation methods in my work. In addition, I maintain a strong interest in comparative and ecological genomics.

Selected Publications

Webb, C.T. and O. Bodin. Accepted. Network structure and dynamics in coupled social-ecological systems. To appear in A Theoretical Framework for Analyzing Social-Ecological Systems. J. Norberg and G. Cumming (Eds.). Columbia University Press.

Webb, C.T. and S.A. Levin. 2005. Cross-system perspectives on the ecology and evolution of resilience. in Robust Design: A Repertoire of Biological, Ecological, and Engineering Case Studies. E. Jen (Ed.). Oxford University Press.

Webb, C.T. 2003. A complete classification of Darwinian extinction in ecological interactions. American Naturalist 161: 181-205.

Hatch, L., M. Uriarte, D. Fink, L. Aldrich-Wolfe, R. Allen, C. Webb, K. Zamudio, and A. Power. 2002. Jurisdiction over endangered species' habitat: the impacts of people and property on recovery planning. Ecological Applications 12: 690-700.

Webb, C.T., S.A. Shabalina, A.Yu. Ogurtsov and A.S. Kondrashov. 2002. Analysis of similarity within 142 pairs of orthologous intergenic regions of Caenorhabditis elegans and C. briggsae. Nucleic Acids Research 30: 1233-1239.

Yampolsky, L.Yu., C.T. Webb, S.A. Shabalina, and A.S. Kondrashov. 1999. Rapid accumulation of a vertically transmitted parasite triggered by relaxation of natural selection among hosts. Evolutionary Ecology Research 1: 581-589.

Bronikowski, A. and C. Webb. 1996. Appendix: A critical examination of rainfall variability measures in behavioral ecology. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 39: 27-30.