Biodiversity discovery & conservation
The majority of species remain to be discovered, yet habitats are being lost of affected by global change at an ever increasing rate. New tools from genomics, phylogenetics and spatial environmental analysis are revolutionizing our ability to discover diversity and map hotspots of unique species- or phylo-diversity. Building on previous studies of rainforests in eastern Australia and Brazil, and in California, our lab is now turning its attention to the monsoonal tropics of Australia – perhaps the largest ecologically intact tropical savanna on the planet, and also a frontier for biodiversity discovery.

Biogeography and speciation
How new species form through a combination of selection, drift and isolation is intimately connected with the dynamics of the habitats they occupy in time and space. Our lab seeks to understand this dynamic at multiple scales, from populations and phylogographic lineages to entire clades, often using a comparative approach in particular biogeographic regions (eg. The Australian Wet Tropics Rainforests), and all in the context of current and paleo-environments. As a continental-scale island with a largely endemic biota, Australia provides an excellent opportunity for such studies.

Biological responses to climate change
Though existing species have persisted through multiple episodes of climate change in the past, we are entering a new phase of rapid, human-caused climate change with no analogue in the recent geological past. Understanding how species respond by migration or adaptation is key to finding strategies to promote persistence of biodiversity. Our lab studies this through a combination of comparative studies of phenotypic and genomic diversity in across environments in space and time (e.g. the MVZ Grinnell Resurvey Project: http://mvz.berkeley.edu/Grinnell/). One potential solution is to identify long-term climatic refugia across the landscape - also likely centers of local diversity – and seek to protect these and habitat linkages to them.

I welcome bright and highly motivated students with interests relating broadly to any of the above areas. Students are expected to take the initiative to develop their own projects and, over time, to learn to function independently as research scientists. The lab will include research opportunities for outstanding undergraduates, Hons, PhD and postdoctoral scholars. Within currently funded projects, there are specific opportunities for micro- and macro-evolutionary studies of fauna (especially, but not exclusively lizards) across the monsoonal tropics of northern Australia.

Fujita, M. K., J. A. McGuire, S. C. Donnellan, & C. Moritz (2010): “Diversification & persistence at the arid-monsoonal interface: Australia-wide biogeography of the Bynoe’s gecko (Heteronotia binoei; Gekkonidae).” Evolution 64:2293-2314

Bell, R.C., J. L. Parra, M. Tonione, C. Hoskin, J. B. MacKenzie, S. E. Williams & C. Moritz (2010): “Patterns of persistence & isolation indicate resilience to climate change in montane rainforest lizards.” Molecular Ecology, 19 (12): 2531-2544.

Moritz C., C. J. Hoskins, J. B. MacKenzie, B. L. Phillips, M. Tonione, N. Silva, J. VanDerWal, S. E. Williams, & C. H. Graham (2009): “Identification & dynamics of a cryptic suture zone in tropical rainforest.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences 276: 11235-1244.

Carnaval, A.C., M. J. Hickerson, C. F. B. Haddad, M. Rodrigues & C. Moritz (2009): “Stability predicts genetic diversity in the Brazilian Atlantic forest hotspot.” Science 323: 785-789

Moritz, Craig, J. L. Patton, C. J. Conroy, J. L. Parra, G. C. White, & S. R. Beissinger (2008): “Impact of a century of climate change on small-mammal communities in Yosemite National Park, USA.” Science 322: 261-264.

Graham, C. H., C. Moritz & S. E. Williams (2006). "Habitat history improves prediction of biodiversity in rainforest fauna." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 103: 632-636

Hoskin, C. J., M. Higgie K. R. McDonald & C. Moritz (2005). "Reinforcement drives rapid allopatric speciation." Nature (London) 437: 1353-1356.

Hugall, A., Craig Moritz, A. Moussalli & J. Stanisic (2002). "Reconciling paleodistribution models & comparative phylogeography in the Wet Tropics rainforest land snail Gnarosophia bellendenkerensis (Brazier 1875)." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 99: 6112-6117.

Moritz, Craig (2002). "Strategies to protect biological diversity & the evolutionary processes that sustain it." Systematic Biology 51: 238-254.

Moritz, C. (1994). "Defining 'evolutionary significant units' for conservation." Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9(10): 373-375.

Moritz, C. & W. M. Brown (1987). "Tandem Duplications in Animal Mitochondrial DNA Species Variation in Incidence & Gene Content among Lizards." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 84(20): 7183-7187.

Moritz, C. (1983). "Parthenogenesis in the Endemic Australian Lizard Heteronotia binoei Gekkonidae." Science (Washington D C) 220(4598): 735-737

Moritz, New approaches to discovering biodiversity and understanding its response to past climate change. ARC Laureate Fellowship (2012-2017)

Lacey, Moritz, Nielsen Applying novel tools to museum specimens to detect early signatures of species and community responses to environmental change. Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (2012-2014, USD338,000)

Moritz. Historical climate change and prediction of endemism in the central corridor of the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest., NSF (2008-2012, USD586K)

Moritz, Beissinger et al. The Grinnell Project: Using a unique record to document responses of birds and mammals to 100 years of climate change, NSF (2007-2012; USD570K).