Kenneth Kozak

Research in my laboratory uses amphibians and reptiles as a study system to understand the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms by which species diversify and accumulate through time. Much of our work involves reconstructing the evolutionary history of populations and species using molecular data. We then combine that information with spatial-environmental data to investigate how climatic variation, geology, and other features of the landscape influence patterns of genetic variation and species diversity. Ongoing research in the lab is focused on (1) phylogeography and speciation in temperate and tropical salamanders, (2) the influence of climate change on the evolution and persistence of montane amphibians, and (3) understanding how evolutionary history and climatic variation interact to drive latitudinal and elevational variation in species diversity.