Phyllis Dewing Coley is a

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

professor currently teaching at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

. In 1996 she received the University's Distinguished Research Award. She has been a research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute since 1995. In 2023, she was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. In 1974, she completed her B.A. at

Hampshire College Hampshire College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges ...

. Her M.A. and doctorate were completed at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

by studying resource availability theory, including the effects of leaf age and plant life history patterns on

herbivory A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat n ...

, and patterns of plant defenses. Throughout her academic career, Coley has received multiple honors and awards. She received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Advancement Award in 1994 and in 2002 was named an ISI highly cited researcher in

Ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

Environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

. Since 2006, Coley has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).

Research interests

Coley's research interests include

bioprospecting Bioprospecting (also known as biodiversity prospecting) is the exploration of natural sources for small molecules, macromolecules and biochemical and genetic information that could be developed into commercialization, commercially valuable prod ...

and plant defenses and herbivory in tropical forests. Additional emphasis of research includes the study of conservation of tropical rainforests and how tropical herbivores are regulated by the third trophic level Current attentions in her research are focused on chemical defenses and linking these to other plant traits, within a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

context. This research is primarily based on the tropical plants part of the family

Fabaceae Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

as a model to understand how herbivores may be driving rapid evolution of defenses and how this might contribute to community assembly and

speciation Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within ...

in the genus Her research has implications in understanding multi-species comparisons and interactions in

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

communities.

Selected publications

Coley, P.D. 1980. Effects of leaf age and plant life history patterns on herbivory. Nature 284:545-546. Coley, P.D. 1982. Rates of herbivory on different tropical trees. Pages 123–132. In: The Ecology of a Tropical Forest: Seasonal Rhythms and Long-term Changes, E.G. Leigh, A.S. Rand and D.M. Windsor (eds), Smithsonian Press. Coley, P.D. 1983. Herbivory and defensive characteristics of tree species in a lowland tropical forest. Ecological Monographs 53:209-233. Coley, P.D. 1983. Intra-specific variation in herbivory on two tropical tree species. Ecology 64:426-433. Putz, F.E., P.D. Coley, K. Lu, A. Montalvo and A. Aillelo. 1983. Uprooting and snapping of trees: Structural determinants and ecological consequences. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 13:1011-1020. Angehr, G., P.D. Coley, and A. Worthington. 1984. Guía de los Árboles Comunes del Parque Nacional Soberanía, Panamá. Smithsonian Institution Press. Coley, P.D., J.P. Bryant, F.S. Chapin, III. 1985. Resource availability and plant anti-herbivore defense. Science 230:895-899. Coley, P.D. 1986. Costs and benefits of defense by tannins in a neo-tropical tree. Oecologia 70:238-241. Salo, J., R. Kalliola, I. Hakkinen, Y. Makinen, P. Niemela, M. Puhakka, and P.D. Coley. 1986. River dynamics and diversity of Amazon lowland forest. Nature 322:254-258. Coley, P.D. 1987. Patrones en las defensas de las plantas: ¿Porque los herbivoros prefrieren ciertas especies?. Revista de Biología Tropical 35 (suppl):251-263. Bazzaz, F.A., N. Chiariello, P.D. Coley and L.F. Pitelka. 1987. Allocating resources to reproduction and defense. Bioscience 37:58-67. Coley, P.D. 1987. Species differences in leaf defenses of tropical trees. Pages 30–35. In: Fourth Annual Wildland Shrup Symposium on Plant-Herbivore Interactions. F.D. Provenza and J. Flinders (eds). Dirzo, R. F.S. Chapin, P.D. Coley, D.H. Janzen, R. Marquis, L. McHargue, J Nunez-Farfan and K Oyama. 1987. Problemas importantes en el estudio de interacciones planta-herbivoro en los bosques tropicales. Revista de Biología Tropical 35 (suppl):207-211. Coley, P.D. 1987. Interspecific variation in plant anti-herbivore properties: The role of habitat quality and rate of disturbance. New Phytologist 106 (suppl):251-263. Coley, P.D. 1988. Effects of plant growth rate and leaf lifetime on the amount and type of anti-herbivore defense. Oecologia 74:531-536. Coley, P.D. and T.M. Aide. 1989. Red coloration of tropical young leaves: A possible antifungal defense. Journal of Tropical Ecology 5:293-300. Jing, S.W. and P.D. Coley. 1990. Dioecy and herbivory: the effect of growth rate on plant defense in Acer negundo. Oikos 58:369-377. Coley, P.D. and T.M. Aide. 1991. Comparison of herbivory and plant defenses in temperate and tropical broad-leaved forests. Pages 25–49. In: Plant-Animal Interactions: Evolutionary Ecology in Tropical and Temperate Regions, edited by PW Price, TM Lewinsohn, GW Fernandes and WW Benson, Wiley & Sons, NY. Kursar, T. A. and P. D. Coley. 1991. Nitrogen content and expansion rate of young leaves of rainforest species: Implications for herbivory. Biotropica 23:141-150. Kursar, T. A. and P. D. Coley. 1992. Delayed development of the photosynthetic apparatus in tropical rainforest species. Functional Ecology 6:411-422.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coley, Phyllis 21st-century American biologists University of Utah faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Hampshire College alumni University of Chicago alumni Fellows of the Ecological Society of America Chemical ecologists