Principal Investigator -- Paúl M. Velazco, Ph.D.
My research interests revolve around reconstructing relationships among mammals, from the population to suprafamilial level, and using the resulting phylogenetic hypotheses to test and revise evolutionary and biogeographic patterns. Most of my current work focuses on the bat superfamily Noctilionoidea, one of the most ecologically diverse groups of mammals.
My approach combines morphological and molecular data and a wide array of techniques and analyses to answer questions relevant to the evolution of mammals, including but not restricted to scanning electronic microscopy, micro computed tomography, linear and geometric morphometrics, as well as divergence-time, historical biogeography, phylogenetic, population genetics, and ecological niche analyses. |
Arcadia University Research Students
- Madi Lush ('25): Bat activity and diversity in the Arcadia campus.
- Connor Scholl ('24): Geometric morphometrics of the Neotropical bats of the genus Vampyrodes (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae).
- Lucy Klumpp ('24): Systematics of the family Thyropteridae (Chiroptera).
- Andrea Vira ('24): Population genetics of bats of the genus Platyrrhinus (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae).
- Olivia Honert ('22): Bat activity and diversity in an urban area in the coastal desert of western Peru.
- Grace Ly ('22): Geometric morphometrics of the Neotropical bat Platyrrhinus umbratus (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae).
- Anthony Muscella ('22): Influences of ecology and biogeography on shaping the distributions of the bats of the Glossophaga commissarisi species complex.
- Matthew Field ('22): Ecological niche modeling of the fulvous owl (Strix fulvescens) suggests future range contractions.
- Julia McAllister ('22): Geometric morphometrics of the Broad-nosed bat Platyrrhinus dorsalis (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae).
- Faith Hoos ('21): Geometric morphometrics of the Neotropical bats of the genus Vampyrodes (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae).
Past members at AMNH, UdeA (Colombia), and UDLA (Colombia)
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