Kai Wang, recent graduate of Washington State University, will be joining the Siler Lab in July 2015 as a Master’s Student.  Prior to his arrival here in Oklahoma, Kai spent time in the field in China and Tibet. Kai was in western Yunnan Province (specifically Tenchong and Husa) in China, from April 15-25 doing an independent research study on a species of Tylotriton newt....

  Elyse Freitas and I are halfway through a three week visit to Southeast Asia.  We spent a week in Thailand working with collaborators and visiting a wonderful national park (Sakaerat Research Station), and now are in the Philippines.  During our visit to Sakaerat, we encountered an amazing swarm of butterflies of various species, all of which were, well, quite friendly… Internet is...

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Although landscape features such as mountains and rivers are recognized often as limiting factors to amphibian dispersal and gene flow, a limited number of studies have investigated such patterns across Southeast Asia. A perfect example of this is Thailand, located in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspot regions. Thailand represents the corridor between mainland Asia and the Sunda Shelf, a famous and...

Introduction A large array of species can accumulate on islands because the organisms that end up colonizing (establishing a new population in) these new habitats are physically separated from the original population they branched off from and thus proceed on their own evolutionary course. Successful colonization is affected by many factors, including ocean currents, competition between organisms, and the reproductive, behavioral, and...

Adaptive radiations are the rapid accumulation of new species accompanied by adaptation to a diversity of habitats and environments that have specific requirements for habitation. This adaptation is typically observed through different corresponding physical changes. By broadly framing evolutionary radiations as the accumulation of both lineages and observable characteristics, comparisons among groups become focused not on the absolute number of lineages or...

The Philippines represent an ideal region for examining the effects of geologic and climatic influences on evolutionary processes and the accumulation of new species. Though the monitor lizard is the target of conservation efforts, little research has looked at the geological processes which have shaped the evolution and distribution of this group. Asian water monitors (Varanus salvator Complex) are distributed throughout a...

Researchers want to know more about the evolutionary history and achieve a greater understanding of the diversity of land vertebrates in the Philippines. Though technological and statistical tools can help with this understanding, other problems have gotten in the way and research has only recently begun to accumulate. Looking at two species of Old World tree frogs – Rhacophorus bimaculatus and Kurixalus...

An understanding of the evolutionary processes that produce a region’s biodiversity is key to conservation. In Southeast Asia, there has been a lack of biodiversity surveys due to inaccessible forests and difficult areas to study. This, in addition to the slow pace of taxonomic work, logistical complications with field work, and the sheer amount of diversity in the area has led to...

Habitat destruction is a problem for all species, but it is especially detrimental to conservation efforts of large vertebrates with highly specialized habitats. Large-bodied sailfin lizards, which require lowland, costal and mangrove forests, have seen their suitable habitats shrink, leaving them with little area to live. In the past 75 years, degradation of the coastal forests and mangroves has lead to a...

We utilize robust geographical genetic sampling, a multilocus dataset, a new synthesis of numerous fossil calibration points, a time-calibrated phylogeny, and the Dispersal–Extinction–Cladogenesis model to test the prediction that widespread Southeast Asian water monitor species initially diversified on the Asian mainland and subsequently invaded the island archipelagos of the Philippines, Sundaland, and Wallacea. Our results strongly contradict these expectations and instead infer...