Gabriela Castellanos-Morales

Summary

For my bachelor's degree thesis I studied the habitat use and food habits of ring-tailed cats (Bassariscus astutus) in and urban reserve located within Mexico City. During my master's degree I started working with population genetics and conservation of black-tailed prairie dogs in Chihuahua. For my Ph.D. I worked on the phylogeography and conservation genetics of two species of prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus and C. mexicanus).

My main research interests focus in understanding the evolutionary processes that promote lineage and species divergence and that affect species’ abilities to adapt to environmental change. I am also interested in determining the effect of anthropogenic activities on genetic variation of wildlife populations and in the development of conservation strategies to mitigate these effects.

My future research focuses on using genomic, transcriptomic and metagenomic approaches to address evolutionary ecology and conservation genetics questions. Specifically, I am interested in the conservation of adaptive genetic variation in wild populations through the search of signals of selection and local adaptation and to understand the role of inbreeding and outbreeding depression in population extinction. This information will allow making predictions about species responses to future environmental change.

Biodiversity Biogeography Conservation Biology Evolutionary Studies Zoology

Past or current institution affiliations