Education: B.S. with High Distinction - University of Illinois (Urbana) – Kim Hughes (Advisor), Undergraduate Thesis: “No associations between an MHC class-II gene and parasite resistance in guppies (Poecilia reticulata)”

Research Interests: Evolutionary genetics of sexual selection, population genetics, phylogeography, mechanisms maintaining genetic variation (particularly adaptive genetic variation such as MHC genes)

I have broad interests in the areas of behavior, ecological and evolutionary genetics, particularly as they pertain to mate choice and sexual selection, and a general interest in the mechanisms maintaining genetic variation in natural populations. The current focus of my dissertation is an investigation of population genetics in Xiphophorus hybrid zones of eastern Mexico and of the evolutionary genetics of sexual selection in this system.

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping and DNA sequencing of a limited number of loci have shown significant spatial variation in population structure among hybrid zones found along replicated ecological gradients in at least six stream reaches. Additionally, some populations appear to be random mating hybrid swarms while others show significant population structure both in molecular markers and morphology. The goal of my dissertation is to understand how genetic variation is distributed along the hybrid zones and the mechanisms that maintain population structure.

Mating simulations on current SNP data suggest that different mating patterns account for variation in population structure in different populations. By combining analyses of behavior, genetics and theory I can better determine what processes are determining population structure and the role of female mate choice and other mechanisms of reproductive isolation. To accomplish this I am conducting mate choice assays in the lab using animated playback experiments, behavioral assays of social association, and SNP genotyping females and their embryos to infer mating patterns in the wild coupled with modeling of mating patterns in computer simulations. Together these areas can show how females are mating in the wild, how closely this resembles their actual preferences as determined in the lab and the contribution of their mating preferences to population structure in hybrid populations.

Soon genotyping of hundreds of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) derived from transcriptome sequencing of X. birchmanni and X. malinche will provide a basis to do population genomics in the hybrid zone. From this we can look for patterns of genetic introgression across multiple tributaries and identify areas of the genome that may be important in the reproductive isolation observed in some populations.

I am currently collaborating with Michi Tobler of Oklahoma State University on phylogeographic projects of other Poeciliid species, as well as within the Xiphophorus hybrid zone. Over the last two years, I have also collaborated with Christian Bautista-Hernandez of the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Hidalgo in Pachuca, HGO. Her studies of the parasite fauna in structured Xiphophorus populations combined with SNP genotyping demonstrates that parasitism is significantly different among X. birchmanni, X. malinche and hybrids within single populations.

I am also currently an NSF IGERT trainee through the interdisciplinary Applied Biodiversity Science program at Texas A&M and associated with the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology group at A&M.