Faculty Support: Nikki Hughes

My primary research focuses on the evolution and biogeography of invertebrate animals. In the lab we use genomic, transcriptomic, and morphological data from living and extinct animals to better understand invertebrate evolution. Most of our work focuses on arthropods and on mollusks, but we also investigate many other groups of invertebrates, including nemerteans, sponges, annelids, onychophorans and the so-called “minor phyla”. Current NSF-funded projects include Collaborative Research: Phylogeny and diversification of the orb weaving spiders (Araneae)

Recent Publications

Fernández, R., and Giribet, G. (2015). Unnoticed in the tropics: phylogenomic resolution of the poorly known arachnid order Ricinulei (Arachnida). Royal Society Open Science 2, 150065. doi:10.1098/rsos.150065

Giribet, G. (2015). New Animal Phylogeny: Future challenges for animal phylogeny in the age of phylogenomics. Organisms Diversity & Evolution. doi:10.1007/s13127-015-0236-4

Giribet, G., and Sharma, P. P. (2015). Evolutionary biology of harvestmen (Arachnida, Opiliones). Annual Review of Entomology 60, 157-175. doi:10.1146/annurev-ento-010814-021028

Groh, S., and Giribet, G. (2015). Polyphyly of Caddoidea, reinstatement of the family Acropsopilionidae in Dyspnoi, and a revised classification system of Palpatores (Arachnida, Opiliones). Cladistics 31, 277-290. doi:10.1111/cla.12087

Laumer, C. E., Bekkouche, N., Kerbl, A., Goetz, F., Neves, R. C., Sørensen, M. V., Kristensen, R. M., Hejnol, A., Dunn, C. W., Giribet, G., and Worsaae, K. (2015). Spiralian phylogeny informs the evolution of microscopic lineages.Current Biology 25, 2000-2006. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.06.068

Courses Taught

OEB 91R Supervised Reading
OEB 99R Supervised Research
OEB 181 Systematics
OEB 310 Metazoan Systematics