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Jared L. Strasburg
Postdoctoral Research Associate
jstrasbu (at) indiana.edu
(812) 855-9018
My research interests can be broadly summed up in two related questions: what role does hybridization play in speciation and adaptation, and what are the genetic and genomic bases of species differences and species boundaries? My research has included a diverse range of taxa including flowering plants, reptiles, amphibians, and arthropods. My current study system, annual sunflowers (genus Helianthus) is one of the most thoroughly developed systems for the study of natural hybridization and speciation. Currently I am studying genomic patterns of introgression and divergence among several pairs of sunflower species as well as the molecular demographics of hybrid speciation in this group, in which three species are stabilized diploid hybrid lineages. In addition, I use simulation approaches to test the robustness of molecular demographic inference methods and to examine patterns of genomic divergence between populations or species under various geographic and demographic scenarios.
Much of my PhD thesis work dealt with a complex of sexual and hybrid parthenogenetic geckos, Heteronotia binoei, found in the Australian arid zone. Using traditional population genetic and coalescent-based phylogeographic techniques, I showed that two parthenogenetic mtDNA lineages had distinct origins, both geographically and temporally, within the past several hundred thousand years. In addition, my collaborator Michael Kearney of University of Sydney (University of Melbourne) and I have combined phylogeographic with climatic and ecophysiological analyses to show that these multiple origins were likely facilitated by climatic oscillations in the Australian arid zone, and that these climatic oscillations and the relatively narrow range of climatic conditions found in this region may explain the establishment and persistence of a taxonomically diverse group of hybrid parthenogens in the Australian arid zone.
