Damselflies

In this research, we use common damselflies to examine the effects of disturbances to aquatic ecosystems on gene flow between and within the rivers of central and south Texas. This work attempts to assess how natural and anthropogenic disturbances of rivers, including climate change, agriculture, development, and recreation, may impact populations of invertebrates across geographic and temporal gradients. It combines field work emphasizing organismal biology, laboratory work exploring the underlying molecular characterization of organisms, and applies the broad theoretical framework of modern evolutionary biology. Therefore, it is well-suited for involving student researchers as it exposes them to environmental, organismal, and molecular biology in the field and the laboratory. Aspects of this work is incorporated into undergraduate laboratory courses as Course Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs), one of the recognized High Impact Practices in science education. This work is scalable to include study of a variety of ecosystems and species of interest to the biodiversity of central Texas, the southwestern United States, and globally.