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Madagascar harbors extraordinary biological diversity and endemism. My current research with Anne Yoder and other collaborators, focuses on understanding patterns of diversification in vertebrate taxa across the island of Madagascar as they relate to both current and historical ecological, demographic, and geographic factors. This research includes phylogeographic, population genetic, and genomic approaches to questions of evolution and conservation. |
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Plant conservation genetics and systematics - in collaboration with Leigh Johnson at BYU, I have been involved in several projects focusing on the conservation genetics and systematics of western North American flora. Much of this work focuses on the use of both chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequence data to disentangle patterns of recurrent introgression both within and among species in the family Polemoniaceae. |
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Mescalero Sands in southeastern New Mexico and adjacent Texas is a unique sand dune habitat dominated by Shinnery Oak vegetation (Quercus havardii). Shinnery Oak - Sand dune endemics as well as a number of more widespread species are found in this habitat and my previous research with Lee Fitzgerald at Texas A & M has focused on identifying historical and contemporary patterns of genetic differentiation in the endangered Dunes Sagebrush-Lizard, Sceloporus arenicolus, to better understand how current habitat features and changes will affect population persistence (Chan et al. 2009). We are continuing research with the lizards of Mescalero Sands looking in more detail at fine-scale habitat use and population connectivity in S. arenicolus, as well as across the lizard community at the importance of organismal, population, and community ecology to patterns of differentiation. |
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Desert anurans were the focus of my dissertation research. Please feel free to email me if you would like to know more about this research.
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