Rob Dunn

Bio

Research Interests

Most of the living world remains poorly or totally unknown. In my lab we study the species around us in our everyday lives, species we tend to think of us as well known. Most of those species are not well known and so there are many things to discover in your backyard, in your bedroom, or even on your roommate. Some days I work to study these species myself, bending down to figure out whether the fungus on my neighbor’s foot is a new species. More often I spent my time working with students and other researchers to help along their own discoveries. I also write about the world around us, which is a chance to share the stories of the scientists who have devoted their lives to understanding species, organs, cells, genes or ecosystems that influence us every day. In my building alone I am surrounded by biologists who study prairie voles, rare butterflies, fish ovaries, dinosaurs with long, long, claws, the decisions we make when threatened with death, alcoholic fruitflies, fungus farming beetles, and much, much more. It is a good job, this thing called science, silly at times, serious at others, but nearly always good.

Web Resources

• Rob Dunn Lab
• Your Wild Life
• Students Discover

Publications

• Climate, climate change and the global diversity of human houses , EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES (2024)
• Fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter in backyard and commercial broiler production systems in the United States , JAC-ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE (2024)
• Green spaces provide substantial but unequal urban cooling globally , NATURE COMMUNICATIONS (2024)
• Insect biomass shows a stronger decrease than species richness along urban gradients , INSECT CONSERVATION AND DIVERSITY (2024)
• Morphological Strategies in Ant Communities along Elevational Gradients in Three Mountain Ranges , DIVERSITY-BASEL (2024)
• The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture , Science (2024)
• The ManhattAnt: identification, distribution, and colony structure of a new pest in New York City, Lasius emarginatus , BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS (2024)
• Widespread prevalence of plasmid-mediated bla_CTX-M type extended-spectrum beta-lactamase Escherichia coli in backyard broiler production systems in the United States , PLOS ONE (2024)
• Domestication shapes the pig gut microbiome and immune traits from the scale of lineage to population , Journal of Evolutionary Biology (2023)
• Field and laboratory guidelines for reliable bioinformatic and statistical analysis of bacterial shotgun metagenomic data , CRITICAL REVIEWS IN BIOTECHNOLOGY (2023)