Biogeography of the Madrean Sky Islands: Mammals, parasites, and viruses
The Madrean Sky Islands of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico are a collection of mountain habitats, comprised of high-elevation oak woodland and conifer forest, surrounded at lower elevations by a “sea” of lowland desert grasslands and semidesert scrubland. The stark delineation between habitats makes for an evolutionarily dynamic setting where populations can become easily isolated on these “islands”. I am currently collaborating with Dakota Rowsey (Arizona State University Biocollections) and Nathan Upham (Arizona State University) on a project that aims to catalog and understand the origins and maintenance of biodiversity in this unusual landscape, particularly among small mammals (rodents and shrews) and their parasites. My interest in this project stems from integration across data types to answer new kinds of scientific questions. For example, with the extended specimens we collect, we can investigate phylogeography of these animals, which we can then explicitly link to morphology and habitat. Does a population bottleneck result in a reduction of morphological diversity or disparity in a genus or species? What are the trends in functional morphology associated with particular habitats in a given clade, and does that association change when a population is more isolated from other populations of the same species? This work is particularly relevant right now because climate fluctuations can cause dramatic changes in elevational habitat boundaries. We are in the process of executing a pilot study in the Santa Catalina mountains, which has already yielded a wealth of data and specimens! For additional info, please see Dakota’s research page.
