9505429 Austin This award is under the International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad at research centers of proven excellence. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. Financial support for this award is from the East Asia Pacific Program. This award will support a twenty-four-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Christopher C. Austin to work with Dr. Stephen Donnellan at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, South Australia. Dr. Austin will collect genetic data to examine patterns of colonization and genetic differentiation across the entire geographic range of the skink Lipinia noctua. This species occurs from the Papuan region throughout Oceania to the Hawaiian Islands in the north and the Pitcairn Islands to the south. These data will be used to address questions about the association of molecular and morphological evolutionary rates and the controlling factors in rates of speciation. ***
