We are generally interested in uncovering processes behind biogeographic shifts, speciation, extinction and determinants of community assembly. We are therefore interested in the processes underlying the distributions and genetic structuring of co-distributed species and populations. Research in the lab ranges widely taxonomically and ecologically. We are also heavily involved in model-based phylogeography to quantify and test for biogeographic concordance and discordance across multiple co-distributed taxa. To this end, we have been developing an inferential framework based on hierarchical approximate Bayesian computation (HABC) called msBayes. The goal of msBayes is to be a toolbox for evaluating a broad range of complex historical scenarios across co-distributd taxa.
Our ongoing activities and projects:
1. Collecting and analyzing nexGen data from multiple co-distributed non-model species in order to explore how ecology, climate change and natural selection drive evolutionary change in multi-species assemblages.
2. Developing and deploying complex multi-taxa population genomic models that can incorporate cyclical climate shifts and realistic patterns of recurring isolation and admixture across co-distributed taxa.
3. Developing HABC software tools for phylogeography (msBayes; in collaboration with Naoki Takebayashi)
4. Testing biogeographic models of community assembly, colonization and vicariance with “whole ecosystem” comparative phylogeographic data. The analysis of DNA sequence data from multiple individuals of many (i.e., 50 - 500) species presents analytical and computational challenges. The hierarchical approximate Bayesian computation (HABC) framework can handle such large scale data sets while incorporating genetic coalescent variance as well as uncertainty and variability in a suite of important demographic factors that vary in magnitude across taxa (i.e. population sizes, dispersal rates, mutation rates, and island colonization times). Currently I am using the HABC approach to test controversial community assembly models.
5. Metacommunity Assembly and Comparative Phylogeography of Eurasian Gallwasp/Parisitoids (in collaboration with Graham Stone's lab)
6. Comparative Phylogeography of Small Mammals in Montane Africa
7. Demographic and evolutionary histories of Atlantic Syngnathids
8. Quantifying fish prey via nexgen DNA barcoding (in collaboration with Chris Meyer)
9. Avian speciation times
10. Species distribution modeling of Intertidal taxa (in collaboration with Eric Waltari )
11. Population Genomics of LINE retrotransposons in vertebrates (in collaboration with Stephane Boissinot)
12. Population genetics of Hucho taimen in Mongolia (in collaboration with John Waldman)
13. How The Mississippi River Functions As An Engine Of Species Diversification (in collaboration with Frank Burbrink )
14. Developing the new experiential course Anthropological Genomics (in collaboration with Kate Pechenkina)