About me
*Website is under construction*
I am a second year Ph.D. student in the Department of Zoology at Oregon State University. I am studying the evolution of sexual isolation and the potential consequences of secondary contact between divergent lineages with Dr. Stevan Arnold. I will use as a model the garter snake, Thamnophis elegans. This is a polytypic species with a wide geographic range throughout the west. Preliminary phylogenetic data using mitochondrial sequences suggest a complex pattern of divergence that is not concordant with current subspecies designations. My primary research question is to determine to what extent hybridization increases or decreases the potential for local adaptation and range expansion. I will address this question by examining the G-matrix of several hybrid populations to determine if the genetic architecture necessary for adaptation is present in natural hybrid zones. In addition, I am modeling the evolution of new species via hybridization using individual-based simulations in the programming language R.
I am also working on modeling the evolution of sexual isolation via sexual selection in populations of finite size using quantitative genetic models. In addition, Dr. Arnold and I are testing process models of evolution against empirical data of phenotypic divergence. Our goal is to determine a set of models that predict phenotypic divergence at all time scales. Both of these projects involve simulation programs which I wrote in R.
Working with Dr. Bob Drewes at the California Academy of Sciences, I recently described a new species of frog from the genus Phrynobatrachus from the Gulf of Guinea islands in Africa (PDF). The presence of any amphibians on these oceanic islands is a perplexing biogeographic mystery, as all of 7 species found there are endemic and must have dispersed to the islands over salt water, a feat typically thought to be near impossible for amphibians. I will be returning to the islands in the spring of 2008 to assist in the 3rd expedition to the islands.