Research
Asian turtle systematics
Turtles in Asia are being pushed to extinction due to the pet, food, and medicine trade. Besides passing appropriate legislation, it is important to gather baseline data by doing market surveys, fieldwork, and labwork. With the advent of DNA sequencing, we are able to investigate intraspecific diversity, detect more complex phylogeographic patterns, and uncover cryptic species. I am currently working on projects on Mauremys mutica, Mauremys annamensis, and the genus Sacalia. This work is being done in collaboration with Dr. Shi Haitao [Hainan Normal University], Dr. James F. Parham [California Academy of Sciences], and Dr. Bryan L. Stuart [North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences], and Tim McCormack [Asian Turtle Program]
Hybridization in turtles
Hybridization is quite common within turtles. The family Geoemydidae is of special concern because this group’s diversity is centered in Asia, where turtles are highly endangered due to the use of turtles for food. Even distantly related genera have been able to hybridize. I have been working in collaboration with Dr. Chen Tien-Hsi [Ching Kuo Institute of Management and Health] looking at potential hybrids from the wild.
Pelomedusa subrufa systematics
Pelomedusa is widely distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Madagascar and the Arabian Peninsula. There are currently three named subspecies based on morphological characters. Our goals are to 1) determine whether the populations in Madagascar and the Arabian Peninsula are natural or human mediated, and 2) determine the genetic structure of Pelomedusa. This work is being done in collaboration with Tomas Diagne [Nature Tropicale Senegal], Dr. Theodore Papenfuss and Robyn Wong [UC Berkeley].
The evolutionary placement of turtles
For centuries, the placement of turtles into the amniote phylogeny has been debated. There are several hypotheses, but the most commonly believed are A) turtles being the only living representative of Anapsida, and are the sister group to diapsid reptiles, and D) turtles are secondarily anapsid and are the sister group to Archosauria. To answer this question, I will use a genomics approach, utilizing the whole genomes available online. This work is being done in collaboration with Dr. Matthew K. Fujita [Harvard University].
