Despite over half a century of inquiry, fundamental questions about how new species form remain steeped in controversy. This project uses two complementary analytical approaches to study the dynamics of species formation in montane grasshoppers from the Rocky Mountains. Patterns of genetic variation across the genome will be used to test hypotheses about the role of geography and evolutionary processes in speciation, and to identify genes that may be involved in speciation in this group of montane grasshoppers. Together, these studies will reveal the relative contribution and strengths of factors that cause species diversification. This information will also be essential for determining how these grasshoppers were able to undergo a striking evolutionary radiation during the dynamic Pleistocene when diversification in other organisms was apparently inhibited by the climatic fluctuations accompanying the glacial cycles.
Graduate and undergraduate students will be trained not only in technical aspects of collecting genomic data, but also in recent analytical advances. Incorporation of this research into workshops, courses, and seminars will provide a pedagogical tool integral for illustrating how longstanding debates about species diversification can be addressed when such questions are studied in a rigorous statistical framework. Lastly, valuable specimens will be added to the Museum of Zoology's insect collection at the University of Michigan, making them available to other researchers.
