Melissa Burns
Ph.D. Student
Program in Ecology and Evolution, University of Illinois at Chicago
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Education:
- B.Sc. in Biology, 1995. University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
Research Interests:
- Systematics, phylogeography, and conservation of Malagasy amphibians.
Current Research:
- My dissertation research focuses on the phylogeography of six species of Malagasy frogs in the genus Mantidactylus. I am using DNA sequence data to investigate relationships within and among populations of each species, which share similar distributions but differ in aspects of their natural history such as habitat requirements and reproductive biology. By comparing genetic patterns among them, I hope to gain insight into the historical, geographic, and biological factors that have shaped genetic structure in these frogs.
Publications and Presentations:
- Burns, M.M., J. Cadle, and R.J. Mason-Gamer. Molecular Phylogeography of Malagasy frogs in the genus Mantidactylus. Oral presentation, Society for the study of Evolution, Fort Collins, Colorado. June 2004
Yoder, A.D., M.M. Burns, S. Zehr, T. Delefosse, G. Veron, S.M. Goodman, and J.J. Flynn. 2003. Single origin of Malagasy Carnivora from an African ancestor. Nature 421 (6924): 734-737.
Yoder, A.D., M.M. Burns, and F. Genin. 2002. Molecular evidence of reproductive isolation in sympatric sibling species of mouse lemurs. International Journal of Primatology 23 (6): 1335-1343.
Burns, M.M., S. Hackett, J. Bates, S.J. Goodman, and R.J. Mason-Gamer. A comparison of two molecular markers, AFLPs and mitochondrial DNA sequences, in two morphologically distinct species of Malagasy birds. Poster presentation, Society for the study of Evolution, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. June 2002.
Burns, M.M., S. Rakotomalala, and A.D. Yoder. Phylogeographic patterns in multiple species of Malagasy chameleons. Poster presentation, Society for the study of Evolution, Knoxville, Tennessee. June 2001.
Moline, M.M., H.A. Dierick, C. Southern, and A. Bejsovec. 2000. Non-equivalent roles of Drosophila Frizzled and Dfrizzled2 in embryonic Wingless signal transduction. Current Biology 10 (18): 1127-1130.
Moline, M.M., C. Southern, and A. Bejsovec. 1999. Directionality of Wingless protein transport influences epidermal patterning in the Drosophila embryo. Development 126 (19): 4375-4384.
McCartney, B.M., H.A. Dierick, C. Kirkpatrick, M.M. Moline, A. Baas, M. Peifer, and A. Bejsovec. 1999. Drosophila APC2 is a cytoskeletally-associated protein that regulates wingless signaling in the embryonic epidermis. Journal of Cell Biology 146 (6): 1303-1318.
Cavallo, R.A., R.T. Cox, M.M. Moline, J. Roose, G.A. Polevoy, H. Clevers, M. Peifer, and A. Bejsovec. 1998. Drosophila Tcf and Groucho interact to repress Wingless signalling activity. Nature 395 (6702): 604-608.
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