| Staff | Senior Scientists |
|---|
| Name: Gordon Luikart |
| Position: Senior Scientist, Assoc. Research Prof. |
| Address: CIBIO-UP and Division of Biological Sciences, Health Sciences Building, Rm. 105. University of Montana. Missoula, Montana USA 59812 |
| Degree: PhD |
| My general research interests are in
evolution, population genetics, conservation biology, and wildlife
disease ecology (CV).
The primary focus of my research is the application of genetics to
the conservation of natural populations. I work at the Center
for Investigation of Biodiversity and Genetic Resources at the
University of Porto in Portugal (CIBIO-UP) with funding from the
Portuguese-American Foundation for
Development. I spend part of each year in the
Montana
Conservation Genetics Laboratory at the University of
Montana (MCGL-UM), and at the Rocky Mountain
Research Station (RMRS) in Missoula, Montana. At
CIBIO-UP, MCGL-UM, and RMRS, we apply the principles of population
and evolutionary genetics to the conservation of wild ungulates and a
variety of other species.
I am developing exchange programs and collaborative projects on population genetics with my colleagues Albano Beja-Pereira, Fred Allendorf, and Mike Schwartz. Many of our projects use molecular genetics to describe intraspecific patterns of genetic variation and phylogenetic relationships among species. We are developing the theory and statistical analysis needed to apply the principles of population genetics to conservation problems. We are developing and evaluating software and computational approaches to monitor temporal variation in population genetic parameters in collaboration with Tiago Antao, Dave Tallmon, Phillip England and others. This involves estimation of the effective population size, detection of population fragmentation, and identification of adaptive molecular variation.
We, with help from Robin Waples, have developed an International Course on Population Genetic Data Analysis. The course is held at CIBIO-UP in even years (2008) and at MCGL-UM in odd years (2009). Fred and I have written a conservation genetics book (Conservation and the Genetics of Populations) which has recently been published by Blackwell. |
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