Jace Robinson
Ph.D. student
430 Montgomery Hall
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115
Research Interests: My areas of interest are systematics, phylogeography, conservation, and population genetics. My research focuses around questions central to our understanding of species and their geographic ranges. Currently, I am interested in elucidating the phylogeographic histories of North American species. How did species respond to the climatic and geographic barriers/features they encountered during colonization or recolonization? Which features have a stronger affect the distrbution of a species, climatic or geographic? How important are suture zones in species complexes? Also, how do intraspecific gene lineages relate to the subspecific and specific taxonomy of a species?
I am also interested in a more applied aspect of these research questions, such as utilizing the phylogeographic and systematic information of a species to make recommendations into its conservation. To answer these questions, I use molecular data such as DNA sequence data and microsatellite DNA. These data allow for a great deal of insight into a species past, and potentially a great deal of predictive power into their future.
While these interests apply to a broad variety of organisms, my research focuses around reptiles and amphibians. I feel this group of organisms is understudied and vital to the ecosystems of this planet. Additionally, reptile and amphibian species can inhabit environments that are often difficult to inhabit by other types of organisms. The often large geographic distributions of herps in general make them ideal for the study of biogeography and paleoclimatology.
For more information on my research, please visit my website.