In the Macroevolution and Macroecology Lab (LabMeMe) we focus on understanding spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity and the mechanisms responsible for generating species diversity. Our research is not necessarilly limited to any specific taxonomic group but is instead motivated and organized by particular research questions. That said, we have focused most of our recent research on using mammals as a model system for our macroevolutionary studies. To investigate these questions we use molecular phylogenies, the fossil record, ecological data, and numerical simulation.
Some of the topics we are interested in:
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Investigating the the role of species interactions on the diversification dynamics of mammal clades.
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Investigate if changes in speciation and extinction dynamics are associated with changes in niche similarity and spatial overlap between species of the same or different clades of mammals.
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Investigate how biodiversity dynamics at the local scale maps to the dynamics described at large spatial scales
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Investigating how molecular phylogenies and the fossil record can be used to study complex diversity dynamics.