James L Loving Lichtenstein
Office Location
Degrees & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of California Santa Barbara, 2020
- BA, Knox College, 2014
Teaching Responsibilities
- BI 202/204 Ecology & Evolution and associated lab
Research Interests & Grants
Dr. Loving Lichtenstein is an evolutionary ecologist who studies the causes and consequences of individual trait variation. Working with a mixture of solitary and social arthropods, he has found that variation among individuals in behavioral, morphological, and physiological traits can alternatively decrease the ability of predators to control prey populations. He is currently looking at how interactions among conspecifics and habitat structure can predict these varying outcomes.
Using a mixture of field experiments, modeling, and geographic trait comparisons, he has pursued these questions in arthropod systems across the planet. Specifically, he performed is Ph.D. research on U.S. mantises and African and South American spiders. Now, he is branching out into a number of new spider and beetle systems.
Awards & Fellowships
- Gaylord Donnelly Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale Institute of Biospheric Studies, 2020
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, 2016
- G. Murray McKinley Research Fund and Arthur & Barbara Pape Endowment Award, 2015, 2016, 2018