Andrew Simons

smiling man in collections room
Professor
Curator of Fishes | Bell Museum of Natural History
[email protected]
116 Ecology Building
Bell Museum Fish Collection
Simons Lab Website
Education

Ph.D. The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Areas of Interest

Phylogenetics of fishes, phylogeography of North American freshwater fishes, evolution of trophic morphology.

Teaching

  • FW 4136 Ichthyology

Research

Work in my lab centers on the reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships of fishes. A phylogeny provides a historical framework for investigating evolutionary patterns and processes, as well as serving as the basis for taxonomy and classification. Work in my lab has included phylogeography of North American freshwater fishes and the evolution of tropic morphological characters in freshwater and marine species. 

Select Publications

  • Hundt, P.J. *, Simons, A.M. In press. Extreme dentition does not prevent diet and tooth diversification within combtooth blennies (Ovalentaria: Blenniidae). Evolution.
  • Gibbs, S.**, Hundt , P.J.*, Nelson, A.**, Egan +, J.P.*, Tongnunui, P., Simons, A.M. 2018. Systematics of the combtooth blenny clade Omobranchus (Blenniidae: Omobranchini), with notes on early life history stages. Zootaxa 4369: 270-280.
  • Egan, J.P.*, Chew, U.-S., Kuo, C.-H., Villarroel-Diaz, V.**, Hundt, P.J.*, Iwinski, N.G.**, Hammer, M.P., Simons, A.M.  2017. Diets and trophic guilds of small fishes from coastal marine habitats in western Taiwan. Journal of Fish Biology 91: 331-345. DOI: 10.111/jfb.13355
  • Hirt, M.V.*, Arratia, G., Chen, W-J., Mayden, R.L., Tang, K.L., Wood, R.M., Simons, A.M. 2017. Effects of gene choice, base composition and rate heterogeneity on inference and estimates of divergence times in cypriniform fishes. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 121: 319-339. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blw045
  • Hundt, P.J.*, Berendzen, P.B., Simons, A.M. + 2016. Species delimitation and phylogeography of the studfish Fundulus catenatus species group (Ovalentaria: Cyprinodontiformes). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. doi: 10.1111/zoj.12485.