Melissa Hughes

Department of Biology
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424-0001

      office: 217B Science Center
      phone: (843) 953-6557
      FAX: (843) 953-5453
      email: hughesm@cofc.edu

Degree:  Ph.D., Duke University

Research Interests: Understanding the relationship between signal form and function lies at the heart of my research program. Signal function, in terms of the signal’s effect on survival and reproductive success, is likely to differ between the individual producing the signal and the individual receiving and responding to it; the relationship between signal form and function, then, must evolve under often conflicting selection pressures on signalers and receivers. These themes – the relationship between form and function in animal signals, and the conflicting interests of signaler and receiver – have guided both my dissertation work on visual and chemical signals in snapping shrimp (Alpheus heterochaelis, marine decapod crustaceans), and my subsequent work on birds, including studies of song learning in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos), and my current work on the function and evolution of song and plumage in song sparrows (Melospiza melodia).

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