1. Ecological Adaptation and Speciation: Speciation is the evolutionary process that generetes new biodiversity. Our lab looks at how ecological adaptation via divergent natural selection to different environments promotes population divergence. We are interested in (1) the ecological mechanisms that evolve to promote reproductive isolation between populations, (2) how different evolutionary forces (mutation, drift, gene-flow, natural selection) facilitate divergence, and (3) the genetic/genomic signatures of population divergence and speciation. We take a multi-pronged approach to investigating speciation which includes laboratory and field-based experiments, observations of biogeography, natural history, behavior and life history, and genomics sequencing. Systems of interest include the apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella, a model for the study of rapid ecological speciation, and the community of parasitoid wasps that attack the fly; and gall forming insects and their hyper diverse communities of parasitic natural enemies, among others (see below for more information).
2. Evolutionary Ecology of Multi-trophic Interactions: Our lab is broadly interested in the interaction between trophic levels primarily between plants, plant feeding insect and insect parasites. In particular, we are interested in c0-phylogenetic relationships between these interacting trophic levels and the role that phylogeography plays in shaping these interactions.
One co-phylogenetic pattern of particular interest is the idea that "biodiversity begets biodiversity" in a term coined 'sequential divergence'. This is a co-evolutionary process whereby speciation at one trophic level induces parallel speciation event of interacting organisms at adjacent trophic levels. This process is centered on the premise that the same ecological mechanisms that reduce gene flow between diverging populations in one species cascade across trophic levels to similarly induce divergence of associated organisms (see below for more details).
See below for ongoing projects and in depth descriptions of the critters we research. (Photo credit: Andrew Forbes)
Rapid Ecological Speciation in the Apple Maggot Fly, Rhagoletis pomonella
Sequential Divergence in the Community of Parasitoids attacking R. pomonella
Sequential Divergence in a more Temporally Proximate Context
Gall Forming Cynipids
Natural Enemies of Gall Wasps