I study the evolutionary ecology of growth and development in variable environments. I am especially interested in whether macroecological and macroevolutionary patterns of organismal size, shape and function arise due to fundamental biomechanical constraints; or reflect the outcome of natural selection on life history traits such as behaviour, physiology, growth, development and survival. I perform lab-based, whole-organism ecophysiological experiments on American and European species of damselflies within a phylogenetic comparative framwork. I also take advantage of the rich natural history literature on damselflies and perform computer simulations of their life histories. By combining these approaches, I hope to understand the microevolutionary underpinnings of well known phenomena such as the size scaling of metabolism, the temperature-size rule and latitudinal and evolutionary trends in body size.