DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The consequences of natural and anthropogenic geographic range expansion

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A major scientific challenge today is understanding the consequences of biological invasions in response to environmental change. The proposed research uses fossil and modern data on marine clams and snails to compare evolutionary changes in species that have expanded geographic ranges along their native coasts with changes in invasive species that have crossed ocean basins with (accidental or intentional) human assistance. This research will evaluate biological characteristics that may confer an expansion advantage (for example, body size), analyze changes in shell shape between the source and colonized regions in both native and invasive expansions, and experimentally assess the contribution of genetic evolution to such shell shape variation.Ultimately, this research seeks to understand biological invasions in marine systems through comparisons with ?native? species expansions, where the natives are coming into contact with novel climates and new ecological communities. Despite the negative consequences of invasive species, they may offer a window into the rapid evolutionary adaptation that occurs in a recently colonized region over contemporary timescales. The proposed research has the potential to give insight into the evolutionary responses of species to past climate change and may help us predict how species adapt in response to expansions under current climate change.