OVERVIEW

Millions of species demonstrate that evolution happens, but few illuminate the process. My lab focuses on elucidating the origins, maintenance, and loss of marine biodiversity, from molecular to ecosystem levels. We are interested in how molecular variation explains and causes differences between individuals, populations, species, and higher taxa, and how the environment shapes genetic, organismal, population, and community variation. Our work scales from micro-evolution to macro-evolution and integrates biological and physical sciences.

Topic areas: adaptation, ecological genetics, evolutionary ecology; population genetics, phylogeography, biogeography, phylogenetics; speciation, systematics, taxonomy; behavior, morphology; climate change, invasive species, marine protected areas.

Research in my lab currently has 3 major focii: (1) long-term ecological and evolutionary studies of invertebrates and fishes inhabiting seawater lakes, (2) systematics, biogeography, ecology, and evolution of scyphozoan jellyfishes, and (3) population genetics and phylogeography of intertidal invertebrates. Each has relevance to contemporary global issues such as invasive species and climate change. Particularly, I am interested in building interdisciplinary projects that draw together expertise from Quantitative Systems Biology, Environmental Systems, Applied Mathematics, and Computer and Information Systems.