About

Professor Essenberg is broadly interested in species interactions and in how mutually-beneficial interactions shape the ecology and evolution of their participants.  In particular, she is interested in what governs variation in the benefits and costs organisms experience from their interactions.  Work in her laboratory focuses on plant-pollinator mutualisms and uses a combination of field studies and behavioral experiments in the laboratory to address two major questions:

1) What determines whether plants will compete or cooperate in attracting pollinators?

2) What selective pressures shape the benefits and information plants provide to their pollinators?

Professor Essenberg’s courses include Biostatistics, Plant Ecology, the Ecology and Evolution of Mutualisms, the Biology of Cooperation, Conservation Biology, and Organismal Biology.