My research explores the patterns and mechanisms that have shaped how biodiversity has evolved, including speciation, extinction, diversification, and biogeography. I am especially interested in how the planetary environment has influenced the evolution of life, such as in continental drift, sea level variation, and climatic change. I am also interested in how habitat destruction has led to extinctions, and in the global conservation of biodiversity. We use evolutionary genetics and genomics, morphology, and GIS data, to address these questions, often in conjunction with timetrees. Most of my current analyses on global biodiversity bring data together in new ways, involving bioinformatics and programming, although I continue to maintain a molecular biology laboratory for targeted data collection, and a biodiversity field program. 

More information on the Hedges laboratory is available from www.hedgeslab.org