One of the fundamental questions in evolution is understanding the processes that generate biodiversity at the geological, or macroevolutionary, time scales. While evolutionary processes, such as genetic drift and natural selection, are relatively well understood at the ecological, or microevolutionary, scale, it is still unclear how they translate over large scales. In this talk, I present an integrative framework I’ve been articulating to bridge the gap between micro and macro scales and present examples in studying the macroevolution of morphology.

Mountains harbor exceptional biodiversity and high levels of endemism, making them global biodiversity hotspots. Yet, montane biotas are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to their narrow ecological niches and restricted dispersal opportunities. In this seminar, I will present recent and ongoing projects exploring the origins and diversification of mammals on the Tibetan Plateau, highlighting how major geoclimatic events shaped species radiations and community turnover.

Understanding how adaptation proceeds via natural selection is a central goal of evolutionary biology, with broad implications for the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Our research group investigates the dynamics of rapid adaptation using manipulative experiments that combine ecology, evolution, and genomics. We aim to characterize the pace, genomic architecture, and ecological consequences of rapid evolution in natural environments.

Both climate and land-use change have accelerated over the past decades. The cumulative effects of these disruptions are not additive or systematic; rather, they pose complex, dynamic environmental challenges to ecological systems. To survive, terrestrial plants and animals will need to shift their distributions to track habitable regions or exhibit the flexibility to survive these shifting environmental regimes.

Embryonic development is a genomically encoded construction process in which cells acquire their identities and build organs within a three-dimensional embryonic environment. A central question in developmental biology is: once cells know who they are, how do they construct the organs they are set to form? We address this question by studying the relatively simple system of sea urchin skeletogenesis, focusing on the interplay between gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that specify cell identity and cytoskeletal and adhesion protein networks that drive cell behavior and morphogenesis.