Postdoctoral Fellow in OEB, 2018-2019; Graduate Student through 2018
Biography below is based on graduate studies:
I am generally interested in understanding the origins of the spectacular insect diversity. For my thesis work, I am studying a little...
The main goals of this study were to provide a robust phylogeny for the families of the superfamily Curculionoidea, to discover relationships and major natural groups within the family Curculionidae, and to clarify the evolution of larval habits and host...
The ability to predict patterns of species dispersal across habitat edges takes on increasing conservation relevance as landscapes become more fragmented. We assessed edge responses for four ground-dwelling arthropod taxa by measuring their distribution...
Herbivorous insects and other small consumers are often specialized both in use of particular host taxa and in use of particular host tissues. Such consumers also often seem to show consistent differences in the rates of evolution of these two dimensions...
Simpson's postulate that rapid diversification follows entrance into a new "adaptive zone" is frequently invoked a posteriori for groups of unusual diversity. The postulate can be tested more rigorously by defining an adaptive zone according to ecological...
Here we present a phylogeny of beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera) based on DNA sequence data from eight nuclear genes, including six single-copy nuclear protein-coding genes, for 367 species representing 172 of 183 extant families. Our results refine existing...
The relative importance of conservative versus locally adapted traits for species inter- actions is an increasingly common theme in evolutionary ecology. Obligate interactions such as those between parasites and hosts often exhibit such strong...
