CURRENT APPOINTMENTS
Professor of Biology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Curator of Marine Invertebrates in the Museum of Comparative Zoology

CONTACT INFORMATION
Address:   Museum of Comparative Zoology Laboratories – Room 527
               26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

Telephone:   617-495-1755
Fax:        617-496-4079
Email:    rwoollacott@harvard.edu

CURRENT TEACHING
Fall Term:   Science B-53 Marine Biology
Spring Term:   OEB 234 Topics in Marine Biology

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Reproduction and dispersal of marine invertebrates.  These studies have ranged over a number of subfields including: kelp forest bryozoans; larval anatomy; physiology of photic responses, attainment of competency, and induction of metamorphosis; cellular mechanisms underlying morphogenetic movements in metamorphosis; patterns of metamorphosis and the origins of coloniality; synchronization of gamete spawning and of larval release; symbioses of bacteria and archaeans with larvae; variation, developmental instability, and systematic characters; and bryozoan systematics.  My research has focused on bryozoans, ascidians, and sponges, but others in the lab have also studied corals, sea fans, and acoels.

SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS

In press. Winston, J.E. and R.M. Woollacott. Redecription and revision of some red pigmented species of Bugula. Bulletin of the Museum or Comparative Zoology. 6/08.

2008 Sears, M.A.B. and R.M. Woollacott.  Alice Robertson: educator and marine zoologist. pp. 305-345. In: Wyse Jackson, P. and M. Spencer Jones (eds).  Annals of Bryozoology 2: aspects of the history of research on bryozoans. International Bryozoology Association, Dublin, pp. viii+422.

2008 Pakes, M.J. and R.M. Woollacott. Reproduction of the gorgonian Plexaura flexuosa in Bermuda. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 357: 121-127

2006  Rodgers, P. and R.M. Woollacott.  Systematics, variation, and developmental instability: analysis of spine patterns in ancestrulae of a common bryozoan.  J. Nat. History. 40:  1351-1368.

2004   Woollacott, R.M.  Climate change, human impacts, and community structure.  In: Neo-Science of Natural History: Integration of Geoscience and Biodiversity Studies. Mawatari, S.F. and H. Okada (eds.).  pp. 9-17.  University of Hokikaido Press, Sapporo, Japan.

2003   Woollacott, R.M.  Spicule content in larvae of two species of demosponge.  Species Diversity 8: 203-217