Research Activities

Faculty expertise spans the range of biology from molecular to ecological. Our faculty is actively engaged in research in the following two foci:

The Ecology and Evolutionary Biology research group within the CSU, Fresno Department of Biology is involved in a diverse array of research disciplines that focus upon the plant and animal communities of the California Coast. These beautiful and often pristine aquatic and terrestrial environments provide nearby natural laboratories with which to study an array of biological systems and processes. In particular, ecological research includes studies of plant population and community ecology, systems analysis of freshwater ecosystems, wildlife ecology and physiological ecology. Evolutionary research includes the study of insect-microbe interactions, population dynamics of plant-associated bacteria, evolution of bacterial catabolic pathways, and molecular systematics and biogeography of marine algae.

Research opportunities in the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental (MCD) Biology and Physiology realm at CSU, Fresno exploit the newest technologies to address scientific questions, within three major groups - Microbiology & Immunology, Animal Physiology, and Plant Genetics & Development. Both medical and environmental issues occupy the Microbiology group. Specific topics of study include:

• bacterial pathogenesis and mycobacterial physiology
• the microbial catabolic pathways useful for bioremediation of man-made chemicals, e.g., herbicides
• analysis of microbial communities

Research interests in the Animal group focus on cellular physiology, particularly membrane transport studies and the endocrinology of reproduction.

Within the Plant group, the predominate issues are plant genomic evolution of vascular and non-vascular plants, using both classical genetic and molecular systematic approaches, and higher plant development mechanisms, using cellular fine structure and studies of programmed cell death. More applied endeavors of plant molecular biology include the genetic basis of both starch biosynthesis and disease resistance. Studies on DNA fingerprinting in grapes, in cooperation the Agricultural College, open a new area of agricultural forensics.