I am interested in the relative roles of natural selection, gene flow, and genetic drift in generating biological diversity. Different evolutionary processes are relatively more important in different contexts and combining studies of diversity at multiple levels (within species, between species, and above the species level) can yield strong inferences about the processes involved.

My primary focus is on adaptive radiations of plant-feeding arthropods and their plant hosts. Diversification in plant-feeding insects is typically associated with shifts between host-plant species and subsequent adaptation to the novel environment encountered on the new host. However, diversification on a single-host plant species also occurs, through either divergence in plant-part use and/or shifts in life history timing, and may be a context of divergence in plant-feeding insects which is more important than previously thought. These different contexts of divergence (within host vs. between host) may exhibit variation in the relative importance of different evolutionary processes in diversification. Current projects with Bernie Crespi and the SFU FAB* lab focus on dissecting the causes of adaptive radiation within single host-plant species.

Related interests focus on the evolution of viral diversity within a single host following infection; contexts of diversification and trait evolution in birds; properties of phylogenetic trees; and causes and consequences of the evolution of diversity within gene families.