biology

Leticia Avilés

Leticia Avilés is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Leticia Avilés rather than just read about it. In short: Leticia Avilés is an Ecuadoran evolutionary biologist and ecologist who studies the evolution of social behavior and the evolution of life history traits in metapopulations. Her methods include a combination of theory and empirical work, the latter using social spiders as a model system.

Key takeaways

Leticia Avilés belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Leticia Avilés to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Leticia Avilés from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Leticia Avilés is an Ecuadoran evolutionary biologist and ecologist who studies the evolution of social behavior and the evolution of life history traits in metapopulations. Her methods include a combination of theory and empirical work, the latter using social spiders as a model system. Her research on these organisms has addressed questions such as why some spiders live in groups, why do they exhibit highly female-biased sex ratios, and why have they evolved a system where individuals remain in the natal nest to mate from generation to generation.

Career Avilés is perhaps best known for having recognized the importance of social spiders as model systems to address basic questions in ecology and evolution. In the process she discovered a number of social spiders previously unknown to science, including a nomadic social spider whose colonies reproduce by fission—Aebutina binotata, a social lynx spider—Tapinillus sp., and a social theridiid whose colonies exhibit a boom and bust pattern of growth and adult females occur in two distinct size classes—Theridion nigroannulatum. Her theoretical work has addressed questions such as the importance of multilevel selection in the evolution of female-biased sex ratios, why strongly inbred systems may evolve, and the importance of ecology and nonlinear dynamics in social evolution. One of Avilés's theoretical papers addresses the question of how cooperation among nonrelatives can be maintained despite the presence of freeloaders. Today, Avilés is a professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia in Canada, where she does research in ecology and evolution.

Education Avilés is a native of Ecuador.

Undergraduate: Licentiate in Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito. Ph.D: Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 1992. Postdoctoral Fellow: Research Training Group in the Analysis of Biological Diversification, University of Arizona, 1992–1994.

Awards 2013 NSERC Discovery Grants Accelerator Award for Research 2001 Fellow Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for Research 1992 Young Investigator Award, American Society of Naturalists for Research

References

Further reading "Department of Zoology." Leticia Avilés. University of British Columbia, 20 May 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303231221/http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/laviles "Avilés Laboratory". UBC Biodiversity Research Center, n.d. Web. 16 June 2014. http://blogs.ubc.ca/avileslab/. "USA Science & Engineering Festival – Role Models in Science & Engineering Achievement." Leticia Avilés. USA Science and Engineering Festival, 2012. Web. 18 Oct. 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140730232132/http://www.usasciencefestival.org/schoolprograms/2014-role-models-in-science-engineering/1065-leticia-aviles.html

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Leticia Avilés

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Leticia Avilés claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Leticia Avilés before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Leticia Avilés ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Leticia Avilés

In research: Leticia Avilés appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Leticia Avilés in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Leticia Avilés is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century Ecuadorian women, Ecuadorian biologists, Ecuadorian women scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Leticia Avilés outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Leticia Avilés in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Leticia Avilés means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Leticia Avilés out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Leticia Avilés in simple terms?

Why does Leticia Avilés matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Leticia Avilés?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Leticia Avilés.