research

Adaptation and Conservation Genomics

By elucidating the genetic mechanism underlying environmental and behavioral adaptation, we can better understand how species persist, diversify, and respond to changing conditions. I apply population and evolutionary genomic approaches across organisms with distinctive physiological and phenotypic traits, leveraging natural variation to disentangle the roles of selection, drift, demography, and gene flow. My research centers on how these evolutionary forces shape complex traits and maintain or erode genetic diversity across vertebrates. I am also particularly interested in how these dynamics are disrupted by anthropogenic pressures, including habitat fragmentation, population declines, and rapid environmental change.

Evolution in Island Populations

I am interested in how evolutionary forces shape small, isolated populations, particularly on islands. In my previous research, I have examined multiple systems in which geographic isolation creates distinct evolutionary trajectories. I studied the genetics of the Haenyeo, a community of free-diving women on Jeju Island, Korea. Our research highlighted their unique genetic history, marked by long-term isolation from the mainland, and identified candidate loci associated with adaptation to cold exposure and blood pressure regulation during diving.

Island systems can produce strikingly different evolutionary outcomes: in the strawberry poison frog across the islands of Bocas del Toro, geographic isolation has promoted remarkable phenotypic diversification, whereas in the Channel Island fox, severe bottlenecks have led to extremely low genetic diversity.

Conservation Genetics and Adaptation to the Anthropocene

As anthropogenic environmental change accelerates, quantifying adaptive potential is central to effective conservation. Genomic data provide high-resolution tools to estimate genetic diversity, reconstruct demographic history, detect inbreeding and bottlenecks, and identify loci associated with environmental resilience. Integrating these approaches allows us to assess population viability and forecast extinction risk under rapid ecological change.

This framework is particularly urgent for amphibians, the most threatened vertebrate clade globally, where emerging disease, habitat loss, and climate change interact with small population sizes to erode genetic diversity. My work extends to all vertebrates, more recently mammals of conservation concern, including Florida Panther, Rice’s whale, and the Channel Island fox. Across these systems, I use population genomics to disentangle the relative contributions of selection and drift, evaluate genomic consequences of recent declines, and inform evidence-based management strategies in the Anthropocene.

Color Adaptation and Other Interests

I investigate the genetic architecture of color adaptation across diverse taxa. Color plays a central role in predator avoidance (e.g., crypsis and aposematism) and sexual selection. I have worked with fascinating organisms such as the toad-headed agama, strawberry poison frog, and mimic poison frog to understand how they adapt to their environments through color variation.