biology

Maria Servedio

Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio rather than just read about it. In short: Maria R. Servedio is a Canadian-American professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Maria R. Servedio is a Canadian-American professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research spans a wide range of topics in evolutionary biology from sexual selection to evolution of behavior. She largely approaches these topics using mathematical models. Her current research interests include speciation and reinforcement, mate choice, and learning with a particular focus on evolutionary mechanisms that promote premating (prezygotic) isolation. Through integrative approaches and collaborations, she uses mathematical models along with experimental, genetic, and comparative techniques to draw conclusions on how evolution occurs. She has published extensively on these topics and has more than 50 peer-reviewed articles. She served as Vice President in 2018 of the American Society of Naturalists, and has been elected to serve as President in 2023.

Early life and education Servedio attended Harvard University from 1989 to 1993. While there she received several awards for academic achievement including the Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Certificate of Merit and the John Harvard Scholarship. After completing her A.B., she went to the University of Texas at Austin to do a PhD under the tutelage of Mark Kirkpatrick. Her dissertation was titled "Preferences, signals and evolution: theoretical studies of mate choice copying, reinforcement, and aposematic coloration." Following that, she did a few postdoctoral positions at Cornell University, University of California, Davis, and University of California, San Diego before taking a position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002 where she has progressed to full professor in the Department of Biology.

Research and service Servedio has focused understanding how mechanisms that prevent different species from interbreeding from mating with one another through a theoretical framework coupled with experimental evidence. Most of her research involved constructing mathematical models to better understand prezygotic isolation. Another topic she has focused on is why males choose mates, and she has found conditions in which females can have traits which are favored by males and that preference for those traits can persist, suggesting that both are adaptive. She served as Vice President of the American Society of Naturalists in 2018 as well as serving as handling editor for Evolution since 2015. Through her career, she has acted in editorial capacity for a number of other journals including Current Zoology, PeerJ, Behavioral Ecology, Quarterly Review of Biology, and The American Naturalist. Further, she has reviewed articles for over 25 journals and acted as a reviewer for 9 different granting agencies, including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. She currently has one graduate student and has trained 5 others as well as 8 postdoctoral fellows. She has extensive experience teaching courses largely focusing on using mathematical modeling in biology.

Career 2002–present: Full Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2001-2002: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, San Diego 1999-2001: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Davis 1998-1999: Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University 1993-1998: PhD Student, University of Texas, Austin 1989-1993: Undergraduate Student, Harvard University

Awards and honors 2018: Vice President, American Society of Naturalists 2017: Fellow, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study 2010-2012: Council Member, Society for the Study of Evolution 2000: Young Investigators Award, American Society of Naturalists 1992: John Harvard Scholarship and Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Scholarship (highest academic achievement), Harvard College 1990 and 1991: Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Certificate of Merit (high academic achievement), Harvard College

Select publications Servedio has an extensive history of publishing on topics in evolutionary biology. Below are some select articles on which she has been an author:

Servedio, M.R. and M.A.F. Noor. 2003. The role of reinforcement in speciation: theory and data meet. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 34:339-364. Servedio, M.R., G.S. van Doorn, M. Kopp, A.M. Frame and P. Nosil. 2011. Magic traits in speciation: ‘magic’ but not rare? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26: 389-397. Wiens, J.J. and M.R. Servedio. 2000. Species delimitation in systematics: inferring "fixed" diagnostic differences between species. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 267(1444):631-636. Verzijden, M.N., C. ten Cate, M.R. Servedio, G. Kozak, J.W. Boughman, and E.I. Svensson. 2013. The impact of learned mating traits on speciation is not yet clear. Response to Kawecki. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 28:69-70. Sæther, S.A., G.-P. Sætre, T. Borge, C. Wiley, N. Svedin, G. Andersson, T. Veen, J. Haavie, M.R. Servedio, S. Bureš, M. Král, M.B. Hjernquist, L. Gustafsson, J. Träff and A. Qvarnström. 2007. Sex chromosome-linked species recognition and evolution of reproductive isolation in flycatchers. Science 318:95-97. Servedio, M.R. and M. Kirkpatrick. 1997. The effects of gene flow on reinforcement. Evolution 51:1764-1772. Servedio, M.R. 2000. Reinforcement and the genetics of nonrandom mating. Evolution. 54:21-29. Lachlan, R.F. and M.R. Servedio. 2004. Song learning accelerates allopatric speciation. Evolution 58:2049-2063. Servedio, M.R. 2001. Beyond reinforcement: the evolution of premating isolation by direct selection on preferences and postmating, prezygotic incompatibilities. Evolution 55:1909-1920. Servedio, M.R. and R. Lande. 2006. Population genetic models of male and mutual mate choice. Evolution 60:674-685.

References

External links Servedio Lab

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maria Servedio

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio

In research: Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio 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: Maria Servedio is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American non-fiction writers, 21st-century American women non-fiction writers, 21st-century Canadian biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Maria Servedio in simple terms?

Maria R. Servedio is a Canadian-American professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Why does Maria Servedio 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 Maria Servedio?

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 Maria Servedio.