It calls upon concepts and techniques from many disciplines of the biological sciences, including cell and molecular biology and neurobiology, and from the physical and engineering sciences. Research and training in the department focus on five areas. Biomechanics is concerned with the application of concepts and methods from engineering and physics to biology. It involves analyses of the mechanical forces involved in animal behaviors such as feeding and locomotion and in fluid flow in blood vessels and in other organ systems.
Developmental biology is concerned with the processes underlying the development of organisms.
Work on developmental biology in the department places particular emphasis on the interface between development and evolution. Neuroethology is concerned with the evolution of the nervous system and with the neuronal mechanisms underlying natural behaviors. Paleobiology is concerned with the interrelationships between organisms and with their evolutionary histories. Physiology is concerned with the mechanisms of organismal function. Work in the department on physiological problems focuses on the evolution of physiological systems and on the relationship of the organism to its environment.