Faculty:
Donald Davis , Conrad Labandeira , Wayne Mathis , Douglass Miller , Charlie Mitter, Maile Neel, Leslie Pick, Jerome Regier,
Robert Robbins, Michael Schauff, Ted R. Schultz, Jeffrey Shultz, Barbara Thorne
Description of Area:
Systematics is the science that aims to reconstruct and explain the origins
and evolution of organismal diversity as well as its distribution in space
and time. The field encompasses or overlaps such diverse disciplines as
taxonomy, phylogenetics, paleontology, morphology, ecology, genetics, and
biogeography. Evidence derived from analysis of molecular sequence data
has become increasingly central to many of these disciplines and is an
important component of systematics research in the Department of Entomology.
However, morphology - the study of organismal form - remains an integral
component of our program, with particular focus on functional morphology
and development. Student training in systematics and morphology at Maryland
is enhanced by the Maryland Center for Systematic Entomology, our joint
systematics graduate program with the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
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