The Moreau Lab
Research in our lab focuses on the symbiotic factors that drive speciation, adaptation, and evolutionary diversification. We use ants and other insects to tease apart the factors that influence patterns of evolution – from the rise of the flowering plants, symbioses ants have with other insects and plants, and their gut-associated microbial community are all potential underlying factors that may have facilitated their ecological dominance in almost all terrestrial ecosystems. In addition we are interested in how biogeography, climate change and invasive ants have and will continue to affect the evolutionary processes that generate and sustain high biological diversity in tropical ecosystems and other habitats. Furthermore we are interested in how we can use molecular methods, next-generation sequencing, and comparative genomics with field-based research to study biodiversity across scales.
Lab Research Interests
- Evolution and ecology of symbiosis
- Evolution, adaptation, & diversification of insects
- Host-associated microbes
- Phylogenomics / phylogenetics
- Macroevolution
- Biogeography / Phylogeography
- Ant-plant mutualisms
- Coevolution
- Divergence dating
- Comparative Genomics
- Microbiomes
Want to join the Moreau Lab? – Click here.
Graduate students interested in joining the Moreau Lab are encouraged to contact me and apply to the Department of Entomology or the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University.
Postdoctoral researchers interested in joining the Moreau Lab are encouraged to contact me to discuss possibilities. There are also volunteer and undergraduate intern opportunities in my lab through Cornell University starting 2019.
