Research Interests

I work on the evolution of species diversity. Why does life evolve into the distinct species? Why do some lineages and regions contain more species than others? What are the adaptive causes and consequences of species diversity? The work combines theory with field, experimental and molecular approaches across a range of different organisms.

• Evolution without sex: speciation and adaptation in bdelloid rotifers
• Evolution in species assemblages 
• Linking population and phylogenetic approaches to identify units and processes of diversification 
• Evolutionary origins of biodiversity hotspots 
• Why are there so many tropical species?

Visit the web-page for my lab here

Recent Publications

Barraclough, T.G. 2010. Evolving entities: towards a unified framework for understanding diversity at the species and higher levels. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 365:1801-1813.

Kisel, Y. and T.G. Barraclough 2010. Speciation has a spatial scale that depends on levels of gene flow. American Naturalist 175:316-334.

Valente, L.M., G. Reeves, J. Schnitzler, I.P. Mason, M.F. Fay, M.W. Chase and T.G. Barraclough 2009. Diversification of the African genus Protea (Proteaceae) in the Cape biodiversity hotspot and beyond: equal rates in different biomes. Evolution. 64:745-760.

Barraclough, T.G., M. Hughes, N. Ashford-Hodges, T. Fujisawa. 2009. Inferring evolutionarily significant units of bacterial diversity from broad environmental surveys of single-locus data. Biol. Lett. 5:425-428.

De Mazancourt, C., E. Johnson and T.G. Barraclough 2008. Biodiversity inhibits species’ evolutionary responses to changing environments. Ecology Letters 11:380-388

D. Fontaneto, E. Herniou, C. Boschetti, M. Caprioli, G. Melone, C. Ricci and T.G. Barraclough. 2007. Independently evolving species in asexual bdelloid rotifers. PLoS Biology. 5:e87