Lawrence J. Weider

faculty-staff.ou.edu/W/Lawrence.J.Weider-1/

Professor, University of Oklahoma Biology Department

Ph.D., 1984, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Evolutionary Ecology, Population/Ecological Genetics, Phylogeography, Evolutionary Biology of Parthenogens, Aquatic Ecology, Conservation Genetics and Biodiversity

RESEARCH STATEMENT
My group and I study the mechanisms (e.g. selection, migration) that influence the maintenance of genetic diversity in asexual-sexual species complexes, using the freshwater cladoceran genus, Daphnia, as our primary model organism. My research bridges the fields of population genetics, environmental genomics, and evolutionary ecology. In my lab, a variety of molecular techniques (e.g. microsatellites, DNA sequencing, microarrays) are used to examine the population genetic structure of aquatic organisms, with most of my work focusing on zooplankton. We currently have several major projects. The first project with Canadian and German colleagues has been examining long-term (i.e. decadal) changes in arctic rockpool and tundra pond population genetic structure, as well as community structure among zooplankton related to climate change.  A second major project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with colleagues at Oklahoma State Univ. and Indiana Univ. is focusing on the ecological and genetic information held in lake/pond sediment egg banks of freshwater invertebrates, primarily Daphnia.  We employ a variety of techniques spanning the fields of molecular genetics, ecology (i.e. direct hatching of eggs, selection experiments), and environmental genomics (i.e. microarray experiments) to examine long-term (i.e. decades, centuries) shifts in population genetic structure that may be associated with concomitant shifts in environmental factors (e.g. nutrient/eutrophication history).  We aim to look at how shifts in environmental factors may influence long-term temporal genetic heterogeneity in natural populations.  A recent third project with colleagues in Norway, U.S., and U.K. is just getting underway to study the relationship between genome size, growth rate, and elemental composition (biological stoichiometry - C:N:P) using the freshwater microcrustacean, Daphnia, as one of our model organisms.