Heather Bruce

My research is in evolutionary developmental biology (evo devo) using mainly the crustacean Parhyale, the beetle Tribolium, and the millipede Oxidus, but also sometimes horseshoe crab, tarantula, silverfish, sea spider, and other arthropods. My lab uses molecular, morphological, and embryological approaches to investigate arthropod appendages like legs, wings, and gills as a model to understand the origin and evolution of novel structures, and to elucidate how genetic networks evolve over immense phylogenetic distances of half a billion years.

Ultimately, I am interested in how genetic networks produce morphological diversity. This relates to the origin of novel structures like insect wings, which don’t seem to be derived from (homologous to) any structure in the ancestor. Co-option of genetic pathways by unrelated tissues is often invoked to explain the origin of novel structures. However, my research into arthropod novel structures like wings and carapaces suggests an exciting alternative: novel structures may evolve from existing structures (serial homologs) that persist cryptically in other lineages. Therefore, cryptic persistence of ancestral structures may explain the origin of many novel structures. Furthermore, if many novel structures arose from ancient structures, then many unexpected structures may in fact be related, and also far more ancient and evolvable than currently believed.

I was born and raised in the Bay Area of California and then lived in the Verde Valley of Arizona, where I earned my Associate of Arts at Yavapai Community College in 2006. I earned my Bachelor of Science in Molecular & Cell Biology from the University of Arizona in 2010, where I worked on the development of the snail shell in Lisa Nagy’s lab. I earned my Ph.D. in Molecular & Cellular Biology from UC Berkeley in 2017, where I worked on the evolution and development of arthropod legs in the labs of Nipam Patel and Michael Eisen. I continued that work as a Research Associate and then Research Scientist in Nipam’s lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. In 2024, I became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.