Cons Sci Seminar

September 11, 2026

12:00-1:00pm

In person (preferred): 335 Borlaug Hall, St. Paul Campus

Remote: https://umn.zoom.us/j/91715591077

Fish Diversity Through Genomes, Microbiomes, and eDNA

Dr. Joseph Heras

Associate Professor, Califorina State University - San Bernadino

Abstract

Understanding how organisms adapt to diverse environments requires integrating information across genomes, physiology, and ecology. Comparative genomics can reveal the genetic mechanisms underlying adaptation, while gut microbiomes provide insight into the physiological and nutritional processes associated with dietary specialization. Environmental DNA (eDNA) offers a complementary approach for assessing biodiversity and monitoring species across marine and freshwater ecosystems. This talk will highlight research on the comparative genomics of multiple species from the family Stichaeidae, a diverse group of fishes found in intertidal and subtidal habitats that exhibit a wide range of dietary specializations. I will also share our work on gut microbiomes in Cyprinodon pupfishes, stichaeids, and pholids to better understand relationships among microbiome composition, digestion, and nutrition across these groups of fishes. Finally, I will discuss our current work using eDNA tools to monitor the threatened Santa Ana Sucker (Catostomus santaanae), a freshwater fish endemic to Southern California, as well as ongoing efforts to document marine fish biodiversity around the San Juan Islands of Washington. Together, these studies demonstrate how genomic, microbiome, and eDNA approaches can provide complementary insights into adaptation, biodiversity, and conservation.

Biosketch

Joe Heras is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB), where he leads research in evolutionary genetics and ichthyology. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Riverside, followed by a master’s degree from California State University, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in Quantitative and Systems Biology from the University of California, Merced. He developed his passion for fishes during his Ph.D., where he studied the adaptive molecular evolution of marine rockfishes. Near the end of his Ph.D. program, he had the opportunity to take an international course on the physiology of air-breathing fishes in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Shortly afterward, he held a postdoctoral scholar position at the University of California, Irvine, where he studied the digestive physiology of marine fishes, followed by a second postdoctoral position at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied the gut microbiome of Cyprinodon pupfishes. Today, his collaborative research uses a variety of genetic tools, including genomics, transcriptomics, and aquatic environmental DNA (eDNA), to investigate fish biodiversity and monitor species in Southern California drainages and along the Pacific coast.