Caroline Williams

Research Expertise and Interest

evolution, physiology, ecophysiology, metabolism, insect, winter, adaptation, thermal biology

Research Description

Caroline Williams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology. The Williams Eco-Evo-Phys lab studies how animals respond to changing seasons, by creating collaborative research teams that address the problem from a diversity of perspectives. The goals of the research lab is to integrate physiology, ecology and evolutionary biology to uncover rules of life that predict how organisms will respond to environmental change, in a rapidly changing world. The major projects currently ongoing in the lab involve evolutionary impacts of changing climates, particularly changing snow cover, and the evolution of insect flight. Caroline's goal is to build inclusive learning communities that inspire a love of the natural world and expand the definition of who can succeed in academia.

In the News

Tropical species are moving northward as winters warm

Notwithstanding last month’s cold snap in Texas and Louisiana, climate change is leading to warmer winter weather throughout the southern U.S., creating a golden opportunity for many tropical plants and animals to move north, according to a new study appearing this week in the journal Global Change Biology.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
March 19, 2021

Tropical Species Are Moving Northward in U.S. As Winters Warm

Science Codex
As climate change leads to warmer winters, many tropical plants and animals are moving north, according to a new study appearing this week in the journal Global Change Biology. "Quite a few mosquito species are expanding northward, as well as a lot of forestry pests: bark beetles, the southern mountain pine beetle," said Caroline Williams, associate professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-author of the paper. "In our study, we were really focusing on that boundary in the U.S. where we get that quick tropical-temperate transition. Changes in winter conditions are one of the major, if not the major, drivers of shifting distributions." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.
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