Dr. Emily C. Lemmon

One of the most exciting questions in biology is How do new species arise? This question has intrigued and fascinated biologists from Darwin to the present. The goal of my research program is to gain insight into the proximate and ultimate causes of speciation in order to understand the origin of biodiversity. I employ an integrative approach to studying speciation, which involves several fields of biology, including behavioral ecology, evolutionary neuroscience, phylogenetics, population genetics, genomics, and ecology. I use amphibians as model systems for studying this process, focusing primarily on North American and South American taxa. Current projects in the Lemmon Lab include (1) studying speciation-in-action driven by reinforcement in contact zones, (2) investigating divergence of neural circuits that underlie mating behaviors during speciation, (3) uncovering the evolutionary causes and consequences of biofluorescence in frogs, and (4) developing new genetic approaches for population genomics.

Waldron, B. P., E. F. Watts, D. J. Morgan, M. M. Hantak, A. R. Lemmon, E. Moriarty Lemmon, S. R. Kuchta. 2024. The limits of the metapopulation: Lineage fragmentation in a widespread terrestrial salamander (Plethodon cinereus). <b style="font-variant-caps: small-caps;">Systematic Biology </b>syae053.<br /><br />Dye, M., A. R. Lemmon, E. Moriarty Lemmon. 2024. Female chorus frogs delay mate choice under suboptimal environmental conditions. <b><span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-alternates: normal;">Animal Behaviour</span> </b>209:215-226.<br /><br />Brennan, I.G., A. R. Lemmon, E. Moriarty Lemmon, C. J. HOskin, S. C. Donnellan, J. Scott Keogh. 2024. Populating a continent: phylogenomics reveal the timing of