Image

ABSTRACT
Phylogeographic patterns in Australia's biota are rich with signal, but that signal is only interpretable against the backdrop of a dramatically transformed continent. I will talk about how deep geological and climatic history has shaped the genetic architecture of Australian fauna, with a focus on two contrasting systems: the arid zone and the Australian alps. From the vast fluvial networks that once crossed active dunefields, to the glacially sculpted highlands of the southeast, the landscapes that taxa inhabit today bear little resemblance to those in which their evolutionary histories unfolded. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) remade the continent: distributions shifted, environments vanished and reappeared, and lineages adapted, persisted, or were lost entirely. And yet much of what has been recorded in the genetics of the organisms we study in Australia is often far older than the LGM. Without this deep paleogeographic context, our genomic inferences risk profound misinterpretation.

BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Mitzy Pepper is an ARC DECRA Fellow in the Keogh Lab, in the Division of Ecology & Evolution at The Australian National University. An evolutionary biologist and phylogeographer, she has spent two decades investigating how Australia's geological and geomorphological history has shaped the evolutionary trajectories of its fauna, with a particular focus on arid zone reptiles. Her work integrates genomics, landscape history, and systematics, and has resulted in the discovery and description of numerous new species.