Paul Barber





My research program integrates data from disciplines such as genetic, ecology, geology and oceanography to address broad questions of how biological and physical processes interact to drive evolution in marine environments. On deep time scales I pursue questions such as how tectonic evolution or paleo-oceanography shape regional faunas and create species diversity. On shallow time scales I address questions such as how larval dispersal combined with oceanographic currents or climate change facilitate or constrain genetic cohesion between distant populations, slowing or accelerating the creation of biological diversity. I am particularly interested in the functional linkages between processes acting on ecological and evolutionary time scales in producing deep evolutionary patterns.

My academic training and research are diverse. During graduate school I studied how geology and climate shaped the evolutionary history of the canyon treefrog (Hyla arenicolor) throughout the desert southwest (Barber 1999a, 1999b). Integrating genetics and geology, I showed how regional tectonic evolution led to the cladogenesis of three distinct lineages and how the mesic climates of the Pleistocene glacial periods mitigated the effects of isolation and lineage diversification during warm, dry interglacial periods.

My present research as a NSF Minority Postdoctoral Fellow examines the evolution of coral reef associated stomatopods in response to the complex geologic history and physical oceanography of the Indo-West Pacific. Results, recently published in Nature (Barber et al. 2000), show how paleo-oceanography may be a dominant driving force in creating diversity in the ocean basins of the Indo-West Pacific, and provides valuable insights into the physical and biological limits of pelagic larval dispersal. I am broadening my research program into new arenas through exciting new collaborations, including exploring how the Caribbean fish fauna may result from the closure of the Tethys Seaway and how toxic cyanobacterial symbionts may influence evolutionary patterns in a genus of marine isopod.