Lei Yang

I’m interested in the systematics, biogeography, evolution, and conservation of both freshwater and marine fishes. For my Masters research I studied the phylogeography of two bagrid catfishes. I then began working with Dr. Richard Mayden on the tree of life of the cypriniforme subfamily Cyprininae (carps, goldfishes etc.), which is the largest polyploid lineage of all fishes. I joined the Naylor Lab in 2013 as a postdoctoral researcher on the CTOL project where my main work is to investigate the phylogenetic relationships, biogeography, and evolution of skates and rays. I’ve also optimized a gene capture target enrichment method that allows us to efficiently collect whole mitochondrial genome sequences for chondrichthyes. I am currently estimating the time of origin and divergence of all lineages of chondrichthyan fishes using the genetic data we collected and the fossil records. The information will be mapped on the tree of our website to provide a timescale for the evolution of these amazing animals.

May 2016