Carl Anthony
Lecturer
Background
Dr. Anthony joined the Biology Department in 1996 where he taught courses in ecology, evolution, and animal behavior for 25 years. He retired as an Emeritus Faculty Member in 2022, but he still has an active research laboratory where he and Dr. Cari Hickerson co-advise undergraduate and graduate students in their studies of the Eastern Red-backed Salamander. This species is a model organism used in the study of behavior, ecology, food-web dynamics, evolution, disease ecology, and conservation genetics. Dr. Anthony currently teaches Advanced Ecology and the associated Laboratory most fall semesters.
Areas of Expertise
- Animal Behavior
- Ecology
- Evolution
Research Interests
Students in the Anthony/Hickerson lab use the Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) as a model species to test hypotheses in diverse areas of the biological sciences. From an ecological perspective, we are interested in the functional roles that this species plays in food-webs and how these roles are mediated by behavioral interactions within and among species. As such, much of our work focuses on predator-prey and competitive interactions (specifically territoriality). From an evolutionary perspective red-backed salamanders provide unique opportunities to understand the role that color might play in ecological divergence, and ultimately, the formation of new species. As a result, the striped and unstriped color “morphs” of this species has been a focus of our work for the last decade.
