Research

Most of the lab's research, in one way or another, is concerned with morphological variation. A brief overview of ongoing research projects is listed below. A short summary of the publications can be found here and full texts here.

Morphological variation in rodents

Rodents comprise the largest order of mammals, with >2,300 extant species in >480 genera, they are also extremely variable in morphology. We are interested in the biological causes of this morphological variation, and as such we test the fit of various hypothesis. We often quantify morphological variation using geometric morphometrics (mostly used to capture skull variation). After quantifying morphology, we test its covariation with various biological variables using R. We are interested in both intraspecific and interspecific variation in morphology, in the case of the latter, we use phylogenetic trees to correct for the evolutionary relationships among the examined species. So far, most of our research focuses on muroid rodents, particularly gerbils, and other desert species. You can find more about this research focus by taking a look at the associated publications: Alhajeri et al. (2015), Alhajeri & Steppan (2015), Alhajeri (2016), Martin et al. (2016), Alhajeri (2018), Alhajeri & Steppan (2018a), Alhajeri & Steppan (2018b), Tabatabaei Yazdi & Alhajeri (2018), Alhajeri (2019), Alhajeri & Fourcade (2019), Alhajeri et al. (2020a), Alhajeri et al. (202ob), Alhajeri (2021a), Alhajeri (2021b), Alhajeri (2021c), Alhajeri (2021d), and Alhajeri (2021e).

Diversification in Muroidea

Muroidea is the largest mammalian superfamily, with >1,500 extant species in >310 genera, and consists of mice, rats, gerbils, and their relatives. This group of rodents is also found on every continent except Antarctica, and occupy almost every type of habitat. This project involves investigating the diversification history of this group, and particularly exploring the role of morphological evolution in driving present-day diversity patterns. This research project is in collaboration with my former doctoral dissertation adviser: Dr. Scott J. Steppan (Florida State University). You can read more about this work here: Alhajeri et al. (2015), Alhajeri & Steppan (2018c), and Alhajeri & Steppan (2018d).

Molecular and morphological variation in dromedary camel breeds

This research endeavor is in collaboration with Dr. Hasan Alhaddad, along with several graduate students in the molecular biology program at Kuwait University. In it, we are establishing a biobank of DNA samples from various Arabian camel breeds (Cdrom archive), accompanied by detailed morphological data, which we are using to characterize breed variation. You can read more about this work here: Alhaddad & Alhajeri (2018), Alhaddad et al. (2019), Alhaddad & Alhajeri (2019), Alhajeri et al. (2019), AlAskar et al. (2020), Alhajeri et al. (2021), Alaskar et al. (2021), Alaqeely et al. (2021), and Maraqa et al. (2021).

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