Michael N Dawson

School of Natural Sciences

Michael N Dawson

Primary contact information

Secondary contact information

  • Name: Ana Nelson Shaw
  • Title: Public Information Representative
  • Email: ashaw@ucmerced.edu
  • Primary Phone: (209) 228-4406
  • Secondary Phone: (209) 205-8561

Associated Topics

Background

Millions of species demonstrate that evolution happens, but few illuminate the process. Michael N Dawson`s lab focuses on elucidating the origins, maintenance, and loss of marine biodiversity, from molecular to ecosystem levels.

"We are interested in how molecular variation explains and causes differences between individuals, populations, species, and higher taxa, and how the environment shapes genetic, organismal, population, and community variation," Dawson explained. "Our work scales from micro-evolution to macro-evolution and integrates biological and physical sciences."

Dawson can provide expert comments on the following subtopics:

- adaptation, ecological genetics, evolutionary ecology
- population genetics, phylogeography, biogeography, phylogenetics
- speciation, systematics, taxonomy
- behavior, morphology
- climate change, invasive species and  marine protected areas

Dawson also runs three Web sites related to his research interests:
- http://mnd.ucmerced.edu/
- http://marinelakes.ucmerced.edu/
- http://thescyphozoan.ucmerced.edu/