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Big-headed turtle

Bob Thomson

Bob Thomson

rcthomson@ucdavis.edu

Publications:

Spinks PQ, RC Thomson, GA Lovely and HB Shaffer. Accepted, In revision. How much sequence data do we really need? Empirical data and simulations suggest about 20kb for emydid turtles.

Thomson, RC, AM Shedlock, SV Edwards, HB Shaffer. In press. Developing markers for multilocus phylogenetics in non-model organisms: a test case with turtles. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

Iverson, JB, RM Brown, TS Akre, TJ Near, M Le, RC Thomson, DE Starkey. 2007. In search of the tree of life for turtles. in Defining Turtle Diversity: Proceedings of a workshop on genetics, ethics, and taxonomy of tortoises and Freshwater turtles. HB Shaffer, NN Fitzsimmons, A Georges, AGJ Rhodin , Eds. Chelonian Research Monographs 4: 85-106 PDF

Shaffer, HB and RC Thomson. 2007. Delimiting species in recent radiations. Systematic Biology 56(6): 896-906 PDF

Degrees:

B.S. Rochester Institute of Technology

Research:

I work on several questions that are related by a strong central interest in systematic biology. How much do we know about the topology of the tree of life? and how quickly are we learning what we know? How do we delimit species and infer topology in clades that have radiated quickly and where incongruity among gene trees is strong? What, and how much, data is necessary to reliably infer species level topologies when rapid radiations are present in the tree? How can we collect this data in non-model organisms and what are our prospects for doing so?

I employ a combination of empirical and bioinformatic tools to answer these questions. I have developed a number of phyloinformatic tools aimed at examining existing data in new ways, but I also spend a lot of time in the lab and the field generating new data. My organismal focus is on amphibians and reptiles, and I do much of my work on turtles. Turtles are an ancient clade that constitutes a major conservation concern. This clade provides several examples of rapid radiations that have traditionally defied systematic progress and serve as good systems for the questions I am interested in. Finally, the increasing availability of genomic tools in this clade is beginning to make it feasible to gather sufficient data to answer questions that have traditionally defied progress using morphological and single or few gene analyses.

For more information:

See my website.
 
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