Amy Parachnowitsch

Academic interests

• Evolutionary ecology of flowering plants
• Floral scent
• Plant-insect interactions

Brief biography

Dr. Amy Parachnowitsch joined UNB July 2018. She completed her undergraduate degree (Biology) at Simon Fraser University, her Masters (Botany) at the University of Guelph and her PhD (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) at Cornell University. She then went to Sweden where she was an Assistant Professor at Uppsala University before her move to UNB.

Her research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of plant-pollinator interactions. Inspired by the diversity of flowers and their interactions with both pollinators and other organisms, her lab seeks to address how and why floral traits evolve. Her research encompasses the ecology and evolution of floral traits, pollinator behaviour, and floral chemical ecology. Her work aims to integrate floral scents into our understanding of floral evolutionary ecology. Her lab tackles a diverse set of systems, mainly in North America and Sweden.

Outside of academia, Amy enjoys gardening in summer, knitting through the winter, and reading ficton the whole year.

Courses taught

• BIOL3113. Evolutionary Ecology

Selected research

Parachnowitsch Manson Sletvold 2019. Evolutionary ecology of nectar. Special Issue at Annals of Botany 123:247-261

Parachnowitsch & Manson 2015. The chemical ecology of plant pollinator interactions: recent advances and future directions. Current Opinion in Insect Science 8: 41-46.

Parachnowitsch Raguso & Kessler 2012. Natural selection to increase floral scent emission, but not flower size or colour in bee-pollinated Penstemon digitalis. New Phytologist 195:667–675