Research Areas:
Evolutionary Biology, Numerical Phylogenetics, Quantitative Biodiversity Research, Diptera Systematics
Research Interests
One of the most fascinating phenomena in biology is its enormous species diversity. Only 1.7-1.8 Million species are known to science with estimates of undescribed species ranging from 4 million to more than 100 million. We are developing new statistical approaches for estimating the global species diversity based on the abundance distribution of specimens across species as reported in taxonomic revisions. The same data is used to learn more about the global distribution of invertebrates in order to assess the validity of the so-called "Biodiversity hotspots" for these poorly-known taxa which contain 95% of all species. These hotspots were initially proposed based on plant distributions, but they were subsequently also found to contain a high proportion of vertebrate species.
But which factors are responsible for the origin of this diversity? Comparative work reveals that closely related species usually only differ with regard to sexually dimorphic characters; i.e., traits usually used during courtship and mating. This suggests that studying the evolution of sexual dimorphism is vital for understanding the origin of diversity. We are using cockroaches and a group of flies (Diptera: Sepsidae: Themira) to test different hypotheses that attempt to explain the fast evolutionary rates for sexually dimorphic characters. The evolutionary relationships are reconstructed using DNA sequence information and the morphology and behavior is documented using electron microscopy and behavioral experiments.
One of the most diverse groups of animals is the two-winged flies (Diptera) comprising many important biological model species, disease vectors, and agricultural pests and containing roughly every 10th described animal species (150,000). However, the evolutionary relationships of Diptera remain largely unknown and our laboratory is one of several taking part in a large international genomics initiative on Diptera. In generating and analyzing a large amount of genetic data we will eventually not only reconstruct the relationship hypothesis for this important taxon, but also test different DNA sequence alignment strategies and use parallel computing to study the efficiency of competing heuristic search algorithms in phylogenetics.
Awards, Fellowships, Memberships:
1. Fulbright fellowship
2. Dissertation fellowship: German National Scholarship Organization
3. Olin and A. D. White fellowships: Cornell University
4. Fulbright fellowship
5. Sigma Xi Scientific Research Organization (1993-)
6. Research Fellowship: American Museum of Natural History, NY
7. Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History (1995-)
8. Research Associate, Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (2003-)
9. Founding Fellow, Willi Hennig Society
10. Council Member, Willi Hennig Society (2006-)
11. Council Member, International Congress of Dipterology (2006-)
12. Faculty Teaching Award, NUS, 2006 Selected Publications:
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Su, K. F., R. Meier, R. R. Jackson, D. P. Harland, and D. Li. Convergent evolution of eye ultrastructure and divergent evolution of vision-mediated predatory behavior in jumping spiders. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, accepted
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Bickford, D., Lohman, D., Sodhi, N. S., Ng, P. K. L., Meier, R., Winker, K., Ingram, K., Das, I. Cryptic species: a new window on diversity and conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, online early.
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Blanckenhorn, W. U., A. F. G. Dixon, D. J. Fairbairn, M. W. Foellmer, P. Gibert, K. van der Linde, R. Meier, S. Nylin, S. Pitnick, C. Schoff, M. Signorelli, T. Teder, and C. Wiklund. Proximate causes of Rensch’s rule: Does sexual size dimorphism in arthropods result from sex differences in development time? American Naturalist, in press.
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Kutty, S. N., M. V. Bernasconi, F. Sifner, and R. Meier. Sensitivity analysis, molecular systematics, and natural history evolution of Scathophagidae (Diptera: Cyclorrhapha: Calyptratae). Cladistics, in press.
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2006:Meier, R., S. Kwong, G. Vaidya, and P. K. L. Ng. DNA Barcoding and taxonomy in Diptera: a tale of high intraspecific variability and low identification success. Systematic Biology, 55: 715 - 728
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2005:Laamanen, T. R., R. Meier, M. A. Miller, A. Hille, and B. M. Wiegmann. Phylogenetic analysis of Themira (Sepsidae: Diptera): sensitivity analysis, alignment, and indel treatment in a multigene study. Cladistics, 21: 258-271.
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2004: Meier, R., and T. Dikow. The significance of specimen databases from taxonomic revisions for estimating and mapping the global species diversity of invertebrates and repatriating reliable and complete specimen data, Conservation Biology, 18: 478-488.
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2002: Meier, R., and B. M. Wiegmann. A phylogenetic analysis of Coelopidae (Diptera) based on morphological and DNA sequence data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 25: 393–407.
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Wheeler, Q. D., and R. Meier (eds.) 2000. Species Concepts and Phylogenetic Theory: a Debate. Columbia University Press, New York; 1-230.
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1999:Meier, R., M. Kotrba, and P. Ferrar. Ovoviviparity and Viviparity in Diptera. Biological Reviews, 74: 199-258
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1997: Meier, R. A test and review of the empirical performance of the ontogenetic criterion. Systematic Biology, 46: 699-721.
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1994: Richter, S. and R. Meier The development of phylogenetic concepts in Hennig's early publications. Systematic Biology 43: 212-221.
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