Research Interests
My research interests lie in the areas of population biology, molecular evolutionary genetics, and molecular systematics. I am particularly interested in the genetics and evolution of social insects. I use genetic markers to study the distribution of genetic variation at various hierarchical levels in social insect populations. These data, combined with behavioral and ecological information, are then used to infer properties of the breeding biology and patterns of gene flow at differing scales in the study species. The objective of this work is to generate detailed descriptions of the reproductive biology of social insects that allow me to reconstruct pathways of evolution, including patterns of speciation. More recently, my interests have shifted toward the molecular genetics of behavior, with a special emphasis on the genetic bases of social behavior. I have studied a variety of social insect species including yellowjacket wasps, sphecid wasps, tent caterpillars, and fire ants. Most of my present work focuses on fire ants (genus Solenopsis), a group that presents many fascinating problems in population genetics and evolution, and that is readily studied in the field and laboratory.