Melanie Culver, PhD (Former Employee)

Aim We examine the role biogeographical features played in the evolution of Morafka's desert tortoise (Gopherus morafkai) and test the hypothesis that G. morafkai maintains genetically distinct lineages associated with different Sonoran Desert biomes. Increased knowledge of the past and present distribution of the Sonoran Desert region's biota provides insight into the forces that drive...

We examined a secondary contact zone between two species of desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii and G. morafkai. The taxa were isolated from a common ancestor during the formation of the Colorado River (4-8 mya) and are a classic example of allopatric speciation. However, an anomalous population of G. agassizii comes into secondary contact with G. morafkai east of the Colorado River in...

We characterized 22 novel microsatellite loci in the two-spotted octopus Octopus bimaculatus using 454 pyrosequencing reads. All loci were polymorphic and will be used in studies of marine connectivity aimed at increasing sustainability of the resource. The mean number alleles per locus was 13.09 (range 7–19) and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.50 to 1.00. Four loci pairs were...

Species that have experienced population reduction provide valuable case studies for understanding genetic responses to demographic change. Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) were once widespread across the North American plains but were subject to drastic population reductions due to overexploitation and habitat fragmentation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A. a...

We adopted a species’ perspective for predicting extinction risk in a small, endemic, and strictly scansorial lizard (Urosaurus nigricaudus), in an old (∼60 year) and highly fragmented (8% habitat remaining) agricultural landscape from the Sonoran Desert, Mexico. We genotyped 10 microsatellite loci in 280 individuals from 11 populations in fragmented and continuous habitat. Individual...

We isolated 16 novel microsatellite loci in two subspecies of endangered desert pronghorns (Antilocapra americana sonoriensis and Antilocapra americana peninsularis) using a shotgun pyrosequencing approach. All and 87.5 % of the loci were polymorphic within each subspecies, respectively. The mean number of alleles per locus was 4.86 (range 2–8) and 2.5 alleles per locus (range 1–4...