A tale of two fishes: how standing genetic diversity influences species responses to environmental change

How can species respond to environmental change?

If you’re a somewhat avid (or even cursory) reader of The G-CAT, you may remember my wrap-up post at the conclusion of my PhD in 2020 which described the various chapters of my thesis. Well, I’m pleased to announce that data chapter 2 of that thesis – on the comparative phylogeography of two threatened Australian freshwater fishes – has just been published in the journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. It’s a pretty complex paper which tackles genetic diversity, phylogenetics, demographic history, species distribution models and how these interact together to understand the evolutionary history of these species in a comparative framework. Feel free to check it out (it’s open access and free to read!) here.

Continue reading

Shifting lakes, coastlines and mountains: how millions of years of environmental changes shaped the evolution of a little fish

The roles of aridification and sea level changes in the diversification and persistence of freshwater fish lineages

The process of publishing science is a lengthy one – there are many rounds of revisions, assessments, and review required before a paper can be published. With that, I’m very proud to announce that the first paper from my PhD has recently been published in the journal Molecular Ecology. This paper is a collection of a lot of complex analyses, and addressing some relatively complicated biogeographical questions, so I’ve decided to provide a simplified summary here.

Continue reading