Ahvi Potticary - Department of Biology

2114 Weston Hall
Office Phone: (906) 227-2364
apottica@nmu.edu

Lab website

• 2020 - PhD, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona
• 2010 - BS, Organismal Biology and Ecology, Psychology, University of Montana

The overarching questions being investigated in my laboratory are how complex behavior evolves, and how behavior influences evolution. My research integrates across levels of organization from genes and development to ecology to gain inference into the evolution of social behaviors. I am particularly excited about grounding broad research questions in species-specific natural history. My ongoing work explores how parenting evolves and influences evolution in burying beetles of the genus Nicrophorus, using a combination of fieldwork, laboratory experiments, behavioral assays, and mechanistic laboratory techniques. 

• BI 215 - Evolution

• Potticary AL, Morrison E, AJ Moore (in press) “On the composite nature of behavior and variation in its stability”. Physiology, Behavior, and Evolution: An Interaction of Classic Ideas and New Perspectives, Eds. M.M. Muñoz and M. Fuxjager, MIT Press, 2024.
• Potticary AL, Belk MC, Creighton JC, Ito M, Kilner R, Komdeur J, Royle NJ, Rubenstein DR, Schrader M, Shen S, Sikes DS, Smiseth PT, Steiger S, Trumbo ST, Moore AJ (2024). Revisiting the ecology and evolution of burying beetle behavior. Ecology and Evolution 14:e70175.
• Potticary AL, Cunningham CB, Moore AJ (2024) Offspring compensate for poor parenting by being better parents. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 37: 100-109.
• Potticary AL, Cunningham CB, McKinney E, Moore PJ, Belay A, Moore AJ (2023) Insect homolog of oxytocin/vasopressin associated with parenting of males but not females in a subsocial beetle. Evolution 9: 2029-2038.
• Potticary AL & RA Duckworth (2021). A neuroendocrine perspective on the origin and evolution of cooperative breeding. Ornithology 138: 1-17. 
• Potticary AL & RA Duckworth (2020). Multiple stressors induce an adaptive maternal effect. The American Naturalist 196: 487-500.
• Potticary AL & RA Duckworth (2018) Environmental mismatch results in emergence of cooperative behavior in a passerine bird. Evolutionary Ecology 32: 215-229.