Ecology and evolutionary biology deals with the establishment of adaptations over evolutionary time and with the organismal function in ecological time. Research is conducted in both the laboratory and field and includes work on a variety of organisms from phages and bacteria, to higher plants and animals. Primary attention is given to evolutionary, ecological, and functional questions rather than to particular habitats or taxa. Faculty and graduate student research is often collaborative and interdisciplinary in approach. Departmental research activities include physiological ecology energetics, plant-herbivore and plant-pollinator interactions, microbial ecology and coevolution, quantitative genetics, life history evolution, population and reproductive ecology, community ecology and biogeography. These research endeavors provide a balance between empirical and theoretical approaches to evolutionary, organismal, and ecological problems.