ÁùºÏ±¦µä

David Zeh headshot

David W. Zeh

Professor of Biology Emeritus | Vice Provost, Graduate Education | Dean, Graduate School, Emeritus He/him/his

Summary

David Zeh retired in 2022 after 23 years as a faculty member of the Department of Biology. He served as Department Chair from 2011 to 2014 and was appointed Vice Provost, Graduate Education/Dean of the Graduate School in 2014. In this latter role, he originated or played key roles in numerous strategic initiatives that supported graduate faculty and graduate students in the Biology master’s program and Biology-affiliated interdisciplinary graduate programs (EECB, Hydrologic Sciences and Neuroscience). These initiatives included establishment of: 1) the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, 2) recruitment and graduate fellowship programs, such as Gradventure, GradFIT and ÁùºÏ±¦µä DRIVE, 3) graduate scholarship programs, such as the Graduate Dean Fellowship and Scholarship program, the Raymond H. Berner Graduate Scholarship program and the Robert E. Dickenson Scholarship program, and 4) faculty and graduate student training programs, such as Mentoring Mentors, Effective Teaching Practices in Higher Education (Grad 702/703) and the Three Minute Thesis at ÁùºÏ±¦µä. As principal investigator, Dr. Zeh led a team of interdisciplinary faculty to secure the first-ever  to the University. During David Zeh’s tenure as Graduate Dean, overall graduate enrollment increased 30%, doctoral enrollment increased 41%, and graduate enrollment for American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Hispanic and International students increased 56%, 73%, 142%, 120% and 34%, respectively. These gains in enrollment and diversity were paralleled by increases in student performance, as evidenced, for example, by an order of magnitude increase in the number of University of ÁùºÏ±¦µä, Reno students awarded fellowships from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Research interests

I carried out theoretical and empirical research in the fields of sexual selection, speciation and evolutionary epigenetics, and trained undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary approaches to research in ecology and evolution. These investigations, often conducted in collaboration with Jeanne Zeh, led to a range of novel contributions, including elucidating the importance of:

  • Genomic conflict in the evolution of polyandry as a female mating strategy to avoid genetic incompatibility
  • Reproductive mode in determining the relative evolutionary rates of pre- versus post-zygotic reproductive isolation and thus the tempo and mode of speciation
  • Strict maternal inheritance of mitochondria as a constraint on male adaptation
  • Physiological stress in disrupting epigenetic silencing of transposable elements, a process that can promote biological diversification through non-adaptive or maladative colonization of new adaptive peaks
  • Intergenerational epigenetic inheritance in resolving the lek paradox
  • Epigenetic inheritance in enabling and/or constraining populations to respond to climate change-induced environmental challenges

Courses taught

  • BIOL 191 - Introduction to Organismal Biology
  • BIOL 415/615 - Evolution
  • EECB 752 - Ecological and Evolutionary Epigenetics

Education

  • Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 1986
  • B.S. in Biology and Marine Science, Long Island University, 1978

Selected publications

  • Walsh B.A., T.A. Woodliff, J. Lucero, S. Harvey, M.M. Burnham, T.L. Bowser, M. Aguirre & D.W. Zeh. 2021. Historically underrepresented graduate students’ experiences during COVID-19 pandemic. Family Relations 70, 955-972.
  • Zeh J.A., M.A. Zawlodzki, M.M. Bonilla, E.J. Su-Keene, M.V. Padua & D.W. Zeh. 2019. Sperm competitive advantage of a rare mitochondrial haplogroup linked to differential expression of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation genes. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 32, 1320-1330.
  • Bonilla M.M., J.A. Zeh & D.W. Zeh. 2016. An epigenetic resolution of the lek paradox. BioEssays 38, 355-366.
  • Padua M.V., D.W. Zeh, M.M. Bonilla & J.A. Zeh. 2014. Sisters' curse: sexually antagonistic effects constrain the spread of a mitochondrial haplogroup superior in sperm competition. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281, 9.
  • Zeh J.A., M.M. Bonilla, E.J. Su, M.V. Padua, R.V. Anderson, D. Kaur, D.-S. Yang & D.W. Zeh. 2012. Degrees of disruption: projected temperature increase has catastrophic consequences for reproduction in a tropical ectotherm. Global Change Biology 18, 1833-1842.
  • Zeh, D.W. & J.A. Zeh. 2009. Transposable elements and an epigenetic basis for punctuated equilibria. BioEssays, 31, 715-726
  • Zeh, J.A. & D.W. Zeh. 2008. Viviparity-driven conflict: more to speciation than meets the fly. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1133, 126-148.
  • Zeh, D.W. & J.A. Zeh. 2000. Reproductive mode and speciation: the viviparity-driven conflict hypothesis. BioEssays 22, 938-946.
  • Zeh, J.A. & D.W. Zeh. 1996. The evolution of polyandry I: intragenomic conflict and genetic incompatibility. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 263, 1711-1717.
  • Zeh, D.W. & R.L. Smith. 1985. Paternal investment by terrestrial arthropods. Am. Zool. 25, 785 805.

Professional certifications

  • NSF/NATO Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Nottingham, 1992
  • Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, 1987-1991