Profile picture for Eva K Fischer

Contact Information

515 Morrill Hall
505 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801

Assistant Professor, Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior

Biography

Eva is a brain, behavior, and baked good enthusiast. The science questions that keep Eva up at night these days are how best to understand behavior across levels of biological organization and whether cell types are really a thing. Following in the footsteps of her PhD advisor, Eva’s mentoring strategy includes increasing lab morale and productivity through intermittent food rewards.

Research Description

A central goal of integrative biology is to understand how genetic and environmental influences interact to produce well adapted phenotypes, but our understanding of how underlying mechanisms bias evolutionary outcomes remains limited. Understanding patterns of mechanistic flexibility and constraint is particularly challenging for behavior, as the brain is a complex, hierarchically organized organ where constant integration of internal and external cues across levels is required to produce context-appropriate behavior. Not to mention this integration must occur across timescales, from minutes to months, to years. The goal of our research is to explore underlying mechanisms to understand how behaviors are generated, maintained, and modified by evolution. We use integrative approaches to address these questions across hierarchical levels of biological organization and timescales. Because fundamental principles governing brains and behavior are most apparent in evolutionary and developmental contexts, we combine lab and field studies to understand variation and adaptation in ecologically relevant behaviors. Currently, we work primarily with charismatic neotropical poison frogs.

Education

Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2020) Stanford University, Stanford CA

Postdoctoral Fellow (2015-2017) Harvard University, Cambridge MA

PhD (2009 - 2015) Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

BA (2003 - 2007) Cornell University, Ithaca NY

 

Additional Campus Affiliations

Assistant Professor, Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior
Assistant Professor, Neuroscience Program
Assistant Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Affiliate, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
 

Recent Publications

Parrish, T. Q., & Fischer, E. K. (2024). Tap dancing frogs: Posterior toe tapping and feeding in Dendrobates tinctorius. Ethology, 130(7), Article e13465. https://doi.org/10.1111/eth.13465

Podraza, M. E., Moss, J. B., & Fischer, E. K. (2024). Evidence for individual vocal recognition in a pair-bonding poison frog, Ranitomeya imitator. Journal of Experimental Biology, 227(3), Article jeb246753. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.246753

Surber-Cunningham, L. L., Oza, S. S., & Fischer, E. K. (2024). Chemical cues of conspecific predation elicit distinct behavioural responses in cannibalistic poison frog tadpoles. Animal Behaviour, 208, 79-89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.12.003

Fischer, E. K. (2023). Form, function, foam: evolutionary ecology of anuran nests and nesting behaviour. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 378(1884), Article 20220141. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0141

Moss, J. B., Tumulty, J. P., & Fischer, E. K. (2023). Evolution of acoustic signals associated with cooperative parental behavior in a poison frog. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(17), Article e2218956120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2218956120

View all publications on Illinois Experts