Ruth Geyer Shaw (born 1953) is a professor and principal investigator in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

. She studies the processes involved in

genetic variation Genetic variation is the difference in DNA among individuals or the differences between populations among the same species. The multiple sources of genetic variation include mutation and genetic recombination. Mutations are the ultimate sources ...

, specializing in plant

population biology The term population biology has been used with different meanings. In 1971, Edward O. Wilson ''et al''. used the term in the sense of applying mathematical models to population genetics, community ecology, and population dynamics. Alan Hasting ...

and evolutionary

quantitative genetics Quantitative genetics is the study of quantitative traits, which are phenotypes that vary continuously—such as height or mass—as opposed to phenotypes and gene-products that are Categorical variable, discretely identifiable—such as eye-col ...

. Her work is particularly relevant in studying the effects of stressors such as climate instability and

population fragmentation Population fragmentation is a form of population segregation. It is often caused by habitat fragmentation. Causes Population fragmentation can be the cause of natural forces or human actions, although in modern times, human activity is the mos ...

on evolutionary change in populations. She has developed and applied new statistical methods for her field and is considered a leading

population geneticist Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and among populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and popula ...

. Shaw has been active on a number of editorial boards, most recently as chief editor of the journal ''

Evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

'' (2013–2017). She has received several awards including the 2017

Sewall Wright Award ASN Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences, previously known as the Sewall Wright Award, is given annually by the American Society of Naturalists to a "senior-level" and active investigator mak ...

from the

American Society of Naturalists The American Society of Naturalists (ASN) was founded in 1883 and is one of the oldest professional societies dedicated to the biological sciences in North America. The purpose of the Society is "to advance and diffuse knowledge of organic evoluti ...

, given to a senior investigator who continues to make fundamental contributions to "the conceptual unification of the biological sciences".

Early life

Shaw's parent were both chemists and she grew up in Pennsylvania. Shaw has stated that they fostered her interested in the natural world by going on nature walks and consulting field guides to identify plants and birds.

Education

Shaw received her B.A. in biology at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

. Her interest in the evolution of plants was sparked by a class in vertebrate anatomy taught by Warren Walker. She received her Ph.D. in

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

in 1983, working with Janis Antonovics. She then worked as a postdoc with

Joseph Felsenstein Joseph "Joe" Felsenstein (born May 9, 1942) is a Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Genome Sciences and Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is best known for his work on phylogenetic inference, and is the author of ''Infer ...

at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Career

Shaw was an assistant professor at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...

from 1987 to 1992. In 1993, she joined the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the

where she now heads the Ruth G. Shaw Research Group. Shaw was elected into the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 2018 and into 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 2021.

Research

Shaw is an

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biol ...

, who studies evolutionary change in nature. She is concerned with stressors such as

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

and

and their effects on evolutionary change in populations. In early work with David N. Reznick, Frank H. Shaw and Helen Rodd, Ruth Shaw examined the effects of

predator fish Predatory fish are hypercarnivorous fish that actively prey upon other fish or aquatic animals, with examples including shark, billfish, barracuda, alligator gar, tuna, dolphinfish, walleye, perch and salmon. Some omnivorous fish, such as t ...

on the

experimental evolution Experimental evolution is the use of laboratory experiments or controlled field manipulations to explore evolutionary dynamics. Evolution may be observed in the laboratory as populations adapt to new environmental conditions by natural selection. ...

of subsequent

guppy The Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program (GUPPY) was initiated by the United States Navy after World War II to improve the submerged speed, maneuverability, and endurance of its submarines. (The "Y" in the acronym was added for pronouncea ...

generations. They studied guppy populations over an 11-year period. They found that descendant guppies who were not directly affected by predation evolved in ways that resembled the life histories of guppies who had lived in predator-free communities. They also found that guppies could evolve extremely quickly, at a rate thousands of darwins faster than the rates of evolutionary changes observed in the

fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

. In much of her work Shaw has focused on evolutionary processes in plant populations. She uses techniques from

and

as well as

field experiments Field experiments are experiments carried out outside of laboratory settings. They randomization, randomly assign subjects (or other sampling units) to either treatment or control groups to test claims of causality, causal relationships. Rando ...

to study the evolution of plants such as '' Echinacea angustifolia''. Through empirical studies, she examines evolutionary change in its ecological context. By studying ''Echinacea angustifolia'', she has demonstrated that

inbreeding Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely genetic distance, related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genet ...

, which frequently affects fragmented populations, can influence key functional traits. Traits related to plant structure, physiology and elemental composition are important to individual fitness and ecological dynamics in populations. With Margaret Bryan Davis and others, Shaw has examined Paleoclimate change in North American forests, from the

Quaternary period The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

onwards. Pollen granules and other plant remains, found in lake sediment cores, can show changes in populations in an area over time. In 2011, Davis, Shaw and Julie R. Etterson received the

William Skinner Cooper William Skinner Cooper (25 August 1884 – 8 October 1978) was an American ecologist. Cooper received his B.S. in 1906 from Alma College in Michigan. In 1909, he entered graduate school at the University of Chicago, where he studied with Henry Cha ...

Award from the

Ecological Society of America The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. I ...

for the paper "Evolutionary responses to changing climate". In this paper, they synthesized ecological and evolutionary research about plant populations and the effects of rapid climate change, challenging the paradigm that evolutionary responses in the Quaternary period were slow and ineffective. The evidence they presented suggests that evolutionary adaptation does occur in plant populations subjected to the stress of rapid environmental change. Shaw has also developed new statistical methods, such as aster modeling, with statistician Charles Geyer . Aster Modeling enables the analysis of life history data to obtain estimates of fitness and population growth rates. The importance of Shaw's work on quantitative genetics and analysis of fitness was recognized in 2009 when the

gave its President's Award to the paper ''Unifying Life‐History Analyses for Inference of Fitness and Population Growth''. Shaw has also developed Quercus, a quantitative genetics software, that performs a maximum likelihood

analysis of variance Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a family of statistical methods used to compare the Mean, means of two or more groups by analyzing variance. Specifically, ANOVA compares the amount of variation ''between'' the group means to the amount of variati ...

of quantitative genetic data.

Mentoring

Shaw advises graduate students in the departments of Applied Plant Sciences; Conservation Biology; Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; and Plant Biological Sciences at the

. Her students have assessed the effect of climate change on adaptation potential of native plants, the evolutionary consequences of gene flow from cultivated plants to naturally occurring plant relatives, and the evolutionary change in introduced species.

Awards

* 2021,

Member * 2018,

Fellow of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior *2017,

from the

* 2012, Outstanding Faculty Award from the University of Minnesota Council of Graduate Students * 2011, Inaugural Outstanding Adviser Award from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior (EEB) of the University of Minnesota * 2011,

Award from the

for * 2009, President's Award from the American Society of Naturalists, for * 2002-2003, Guggenheim Fellowship for Natural Sciences,

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Ruth Geyer 1953 births Living people Duke University alumni 21st-century American biologists American women biologists Women evolutionary biologists Oberlin College alumni American geneticists University of Minnesota people Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 21st-century American women scientists