The Adams lab focuses on developmental responses in larvae and embryos using the sea urchin as a model system. We integrate marine ecology, developmental biology, and neuroscience approaches to elucidate the molecular mechanisms and ecological consequences of developmental plasticity. We are interested in how the larvae receive environmental cues and translate those cues into developmental changes in timing or form. Defining the molecular mechanism, allows us to experimentally manipulate larval responses to address the adaptive value, costs, and limits of the plastic phenotypic responses.

Check out some of our work in developmental ecology of sea urchins published in Nature Communications.