Research Program

I have broad interests in evolution, particularly evolutionary ecology and evolutionary genetics.  My students and I have carried out research on reproductive strategies and larval life history in frogs.  We have also worked on the evolution of aposematism and mimicry.  I am interested in molecular systematics and the use of phylogenetic trees to inform analyses of ecology and adaptation. Evolutionary ecology and phylogenetics are complimentary, because it is important to consider the effects of ecology on adaptation in a historical context.  Similarly, phylogenetic information can be used to investigate the influence of ecological and social factors on adaptation in comparative analyses.  Most of our field and laboratory research has focused on the poison frogs of the family Dendrobatidae, a group of toxic frogs in Central and South America.  These frogs vary in diet, coloration and toxicity, making them excellent candidates for research on aposematism and mimicry.  The reproductive ecology of these frogs is also interesting and complex, involving territoriality, intra-sexual competition for mates, prolonged courtship, mate choice, long term associations between males and females, extensive parental care by one or both sexes, trophic egg-feeding, and larval cannibalism.  The wide spectrum of variation in life histories across the poison frog family make this group an excellent system for comparative studies.

I am also interested in evolutionary approaches to human health and behavior. Evolutionary biology is highly relevant to many issues crucial to human health and disease, yet few medical researchers take an evolutionary perspective. Vast amounts of data relevant to issues of central interest in evolutionary biology, such as the evolution of senescence and parasite-host coevolution, are being generated by biomedical researchers, but use of these data to test evolutionary hypotheses is uncommon. My collaborators and I have attempted to develop hypotheses relating specific conditions to environmental, social and genetic factors in an evolutionary framework. We are also attempting to test specific hypotheses using molecular evolutionary genetic analyses of genomic data available from public databases such as GenBank.

Courses Taught

BIOL 1060. Environmental Biology

BIOL 3620/3621. Biological Evolution Lecture/Laboratory

BIOL 5740/5741. Behavioral Ecology Lecture/Discussion

BIOL 6850. Advances in Ecology: Evolutionary Medicine

Recent Publications

Brown, J.L., Morales, V. & Summers, K. Tactical reproductive parasitism via larval cannibalism in Peruvian poison frogs. In press in Biology Letters.

Crespi, B., Summers, K. and Dorus, S. Genomic sister-disorders of neurodevelopment: an evolutionary approach. In press in Evolutionary Applications (invited article).

Summers, K ., Roney, K., da Silva, J., Capraro, G., Cuthbertson, B., Rosenthal, G., Ryan, M., Kazianis, S. & McConnell, T. M. Evolutionary dynamics of the DAB and DXB MHC II loci in Xiphophorus fishes. In press in Genetica.

Santos, J.C., Coloma, L.A., Summers, K., Caldwell, J.P., Ree, R. & Cannatella, D.C. Neotropical amphibian diversity explained by repeated Miocene dispersals and radiations. In press in PLOS Biology.

von May, R., Donnelly, M.A., Medina-Muller, M. & Summers, K. Patterns of reproductive resource use in a bamboo specialist frog, Ranitomeya biolat, from Amazonian Peru. In press in Canadian Journal of Zoology.

Brown, J.L., Morales, V. & Summers, K. Home range size and location in relation to reproductive resources: a Monte Carlo approach using GIS data. In press in Animal Behaviour.

von May, R., Medina-Muller, M., Donnelly, M. & Summers, K. The tadpole of the bamboo–breeding poison frog Ranitomeya biolat (Anura: Dendrobatidae). In press in Zootaxa.

Twomey, E., Morales, V., & Summers, K. 2008. The effect of kinship on growth rate in Peruvian poison frogs. Phyllomedusa 7:119-124.

Brown, J.L., Morales, V., & Summers, K. 2008. Divergence in parental care, habitat selection and larval life history in two species of Peruvian poison frogs: an experimental analysis. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 21:1534-1543.

Summers, K. & Zhu, Y. 2008. Positive selection on a prolactin paralog following gene duplication in cichlids: adaptive evolution in the context of parental care? Copeia 2008 (4):873-877.

Summers, K. & Crespi, B.J. 2008. Molecular evolution of the prostate cancer susceptibility locus RNASEL:  evidence for positive selection. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 8:297-301.

Twomey, E., Morales, V. & Summers, K. 2008. Evaluating condition-specific and asymmetrical competition in a species-distribution context. Oikos 117:1175-1184.

Brown, J.L., Twomey, E., Morales, V. & Summers, K. 2008. Mating and parental care behaviors in relation to pool use in two species of Peruvian poison frogs. Behaviour 145:1139-1165.

Crespi, B.J., Summers, K., Dorus, S. 2007. Adaptive evolution of genes underlying schizophrenia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 274:2801-2810.

Summers, K. & Crespi, B.J. 2007. The androgen receptor and prostate cancer: a role for sexual selection and sexual conflict? Medical Hypotheses 70:435-443.

Summers, K., McKeon, C.S., Heying, H., Hall, J., & Patrick, W. 2007. Social and environmental influences on egg size evolution in frogs. Journal of Zoology 271: 225-232.

Roberts, J.L., Brown, J.L., Schulte, R., Arizabal, W, and Summers, K. 2007. Rapid diversification of coloration among populations of a poison frog isolated on sky peninsulas in the central cordillera of Peru. Journal of Biogeography 34:417-426.

Roberts, J.L., Brown, J.L., von May, R., Arizabal, W., Schulte, R., Presar, A., Symula, R. & Summers, K. 2007. Phylogenetic relationships of the Neotropical poison frogs of the genus Dendrobates. Herpetological Journal 16:377-385.

Roberts, J.L., Brown, J.L., Arizabal, W., von May, R., Schulte, R., & Summers, K. 2006. Genetic divergence and speciation in lowland and montane Peruvian poison frogs. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41: 149-164.

Crespi, B. & Summers, K. 2006. Positive selection in the evolution of cancer.  Biological Reviews 81: 407-424.

Summers, K., McKeon, C.S. & Heying, H. 2006. The evolution of parental care and egg size: a comparative analysis in frogs. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 273: 687-692.

Brown, J.L., Schulte, R. & Summers, K. 2006. A new species of Dendrobates (Anura: Dendrobatidae) from the Amazonian lowlands in Perú. Zootaxa 1152: 45-58.

Crespi, B. and Summers, K. 2005. Evolutionary biology of cancer. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20: 545-552.

Summers, K. and Crespi, B. 2005. Cadherins in maternal-foetal interactions: red queen with a green beard? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 272:643-649.

Summers, K. 2005. The evolutionary ecology of despotism. Evolution and Human Behavior 26:106-135.

Siddiqi, A., Cronin, T.W., Loew, E.R., Vorobyev, M. & Summers, K. 2004. Interspecific and intraspecific views of color signals in the strawberry poison frog, Dendrobates pumilio. Journal of Experimental Biology 207:2471-2485.

Summers, K. & McKeon, C.S. 2004. The evolutionary ecology of phytotelmata use in poison frogs. Miscellaneous Publications of the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan 193:55-73.

Summers, K., Cronin, T.W., and Kennedy, T. 2004. Cross-breeding of distinct color morphs of the strawberry poison frog (Dendrobates pumilio) from the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panama. Journal of Herpetology 38:1-8.

Laboratory Personnel