Antoine recently joined the Galloway lab with plans to resolve the complex demographic and evolutionary factors that shape the rear edge of Campanula americana. After the last glaciation, C. americana populations spread northwards, leaving the southern (or rear) range edge lightly populated – or that is one possibility, alternatively southern populations may have recolonized from the north or perhaps are left from an even older glacial cycle. Antoine will assess this history and how it may influence the persistence or extinction of rear-edge populations under climate change.
Antoine recently completed his PhD at the University of Basel (Switzerland) working with Yvonne Willi, where he used Arabidopsis lyrata to study how genetic drift constrains species’ ranges by causing the accumulation of recessive deleterious mutations towards distribution limits.
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