Grant: Canada Research Chairs

There is a wide variety of organisms on this planet, yet one of the great unanswered questions in biology is how new species are formed and maintained at the genetic level. The question of species formation and maintenance is critical for our understanding of evolution as well as the conservation of endangered species. Two primary goals of research on species formation are determining the genetic factors that prevent interspecies reproduction and identifying the evolutionary forces driving their divergence. My research focuses on the identification and characterization of genes contributing to variation in reproductive traits both within and between species, providing novel insight into the mechanisms by which new species are formed as well as enhancing our general understanding of the genetic basis of complex traits.