UC Berkeley

Predaceous diving beetles (Dytiscidae) are common inhabitants of both lentic and lotic freshwater systems worldwide. They have played a major role in our understanding of the relationship between habitat stability and evolution for dispersal propensity.

Numerous endemic diving beetles can be found in on the island of New Guinea. However, like most micro-fauna on remote islands, their evolutionary history and population ecology is largely unknown. In this series of studies, I use both traditional Sanger sequencing and next- generation sequencing techniques to explore the phylogenetic relationship of beetles in a genus as well as the population genetic patterns within a species.