My research interests center on the genomic basis of population divergence, speciation, and complex trait evolution. My dissertation research uses genomic approaches to study evolutionary history and conservation-relevant processes across vertebrate species.”
Recent and ongoing first-author work.
In species that are elusive or difficult to study, I use population genomic datasets to uncover patterns of gene flow and population dynamics. In the western chicken turtle, a freshwater turtle of conservation concern, we used this approach to uncover previously unknown population structure suggestive of natal philopatry.
Local extirpations and extreme bottlenecks can make it difficult to parse contemporary population dynamics. This is especially true in highly mobile species such as the gray whale, which had two historical stocks (east and west) in the North Pacific. After commercial whaling depleted both stocks, the western gray whale was feared extirpated, but a small group of contemporary gray whales exist in their range. We analyzed population genomic data from both sides of the Pacific and found that whales sampled in the west had greater genomic variation than those in the east. We present evidence that this structure is due to mixed ancestry in the WNP, with admixture occurring between historical eastern and western stocks.
An important application of population genomics is in informing conservation management. However, interpreting population genomic metrics can be daunting. We proposed the use of thematic GIS layers to visualize metrics relevant to genomic potential or susceptibility. This strategy can facilitate straightforward interpretation, especially in the context of long-term genomic monitoring.
Pangenomes are emerging as a powerful tool in evolutionary and conservation genomics. The use of a pangenome allows incorporating all genomic variants from a population without bias from the reference genome. However, most approaches require cost prohibitive high-depth, long-read sequencing of many individuals. We developed workflows to construct pangenomes from low-depth, short-read sequencing. We show that such pangenomes can still capture a large majority of variants in a population, and are thus relevant tools for budget-constrained projects.