Comparative Phylogeography and Conservation Genetics of Australia's Biodiversity Hotspot

One of the most important issues in biology concerns how we can explain and understand the evolutionary processes that promote and sustain biodiversity. I will generate detailed phylogeographic hypotheses for ten vertebrate species distributed in Australia's biodiversity hotspot and for each I will assemble a series of independent molecular data sets from mitochondrial and multiple nuclear genes. These data and new statistical procedures will provide multiple rigorous tests of a key hypothesis in this field. I then will use a comparative approach to identify areas of phylogeographic congruence and thus priority areas of high conservation value for future conservation initiatives.