Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Earth & Marine Sciences A308
Phone: 831.459.5358
Fax: 831.459.5353
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JOHN N. THOMPSON Professor of EEBiology B.A., Washington & Jefferson College, Pennsylvania Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana THOMPSON LAB

Earth & Marine Sciences A308 University of California Santa Cruz, CA 95064 phone 831.459.4741 fax 831.459.5353 thompson@biology.ucsc.edu office hours

Coevolution and the Organization of Biodiversity

Research in my laboratory is on the ways in which coevolution between species organizes the earth's biodiversity. My long-term goal is to understand how coevolving interactions are genetically and ecologically organized across broad geographic landscapes and how they connect biological communities. Our work includes studies of species interactions across many types of environments, from relatively pristine landscapes to others that are becoming increasingly fragmented and modified by introduced taxa. Most of our empirical work uses interactions between insects and plants (herbivores and plants; pollinators and flowers), because these are among the most diverse groups of organisms on earth. We use a wide range of ecological, genetic, molecular, and evolutionary approaches to study the dynamics of coevolution.

Current Research

We are currently evaluating the geographic structure and evolutionary dynamics of a variety of species interactions distributed throughout western North America; We are asking how

interacting species differ in geographic structure and local adaptation, how local coevolutionary hotspots shape the overall genetic structure and evolutionary trajectories of interactions, and how the evolution of polyploidy in plant populations leads to the diversification of plant species and interactions with other taxa.

Selected Publications

Thompson, J. N. 2006. The geographic mosaic of coevolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Thompson, J. N., and Fernandez, C. 2006. Temporal dynamics of antagonism and mutualism in a coevolving plant-insect interaction. Ecology 87:103-112.

Fernandez, C. C., Shevrock, J., Glazer, A. N., and Thompson, J. N. 2006. Cryptic speciation in a drought-tolerant cosmopolitan moss Grimmia laevigata. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103:637-642.

Guimaraes, P. R., Jr., Rico-Gray, V., dos Reis, S. F., and Thompson, J. N.. 2006. Asymmetric specialization in ant-plant mutualistic networks. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B (in press)

Thompson, J. N. 2005. The geographic mosaic of coevolutionary arms races. Current Biology 15:R992-994.

Forde, S. E., J. N. Thompson, and B. J. M. Bohannan. 2004. Adaptation varies through space and time in a coevolving host-parasitoid interaction. Nature 431:841-844.

Thompson, J.N., Nuismer, S.L. and Merg, K. 2004. Plant polyploidy and the evolutionary ecology and plant/animal interactions. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 82:511-519.

Gomulkiewicz, R., Nuismer, S.L., and Thompson, J.N. 2003. Coevolution in variable mutualisms. American Naturalist 162:S80-S93

Nuismer, S.L., Thompson, J.N., and Gomulkiewicz, R. 2003. Coevolution between species with partially overlapping geographic ranges. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 16:1337-1345

Calsbeek, R., Thompson, J.N. and Richardson, J.R. 2003. Patterns of molecular diversification in a biodiversity hotspot: the California Floristic Province. Molecular Ecology 12:1021-1029.

Thompson, J.N. and Cunningham, B.M. 2002. Geographic structure and dynamics of coevolutionary selection. Nature 417:735-738.

Janz, N. and Thompson, J.N. 2002. Plant polyploidy and host expansion in an insect herbivore. Oecology 130:570-575.

Thompson, J.N., Nuismer, S.L., and Gomulkiewicz, R. 2002. Coevolution and maladaptation. Integrative and Comparative Biology 42:381-387.