Craig C. Moritz

Professor

Lab: Moritz Lab

Email: craigm@berkeley.edu
Office phone: 643-7711

Full contact information

Research interests

My research centers on the use of molecular approaches to study ecology and evolution and addresses questions including; (1) the use of molecular markers to infer current and historical population processes at various spatial and temporal scales; (2) the effects of historical changes in habitat on current distributions and diversity of faunas, with particular reference to rainforest biotas; and (3) improving the use of molecular information in conserva- tion biology and the development of strategies that recognize evolutionary processes. The geographic focus of this research program spans the tropical forests of Australasia, especially the wet tropics of northeastern Australia and western North America. While I emphasize amphibians and reptiles as research organisms in their natural environments, I am not taxon bound and pursue research on organisms ranging from annelids and molluscs to all vertebrate groups. Much of my current research is devoted to exploring ways of combining information from surveys of molecular variation with data on demography and current or historical distributions in order to infer population processes in space and time.

Selected publications

Moritz, C. 2002. Strategies to protect biological diversity and the processes that sustain it. Systematic Biology 51:238-254.

Hugall, A., C. Moritz, A. Moussalli and. J. Stanisic. 2002. Reconciling paleodistribution models and comparative phylogeography in the wey tropics rainforest land snail Gnarosophia bellendenkerensis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99:6112-6117.

Estoup, A., I.J. Wilson, C. Sullivan, J.-M. Cornuet and C. Moritz. 2001. Inferring population history from microsatellite and enzyme data in serially introduced cane toads, Bufo marinus. Genetics 159:1671-1687.

Sumner, J., F. Rousset, A. Estoup and C. Moritz. 2001. "Neighbourhood" size, dispersal and density estimates in the prickly forest skink (Gnypetoscincus queenslandiae) using individual genetic and demographic methods. Molecular Ecology 10:1917-1927.

Moritz, C., K.S. Richardson, S. Ferrier, G.B. Monteith, J. Stanisic, S.E. Williams and T. Whiffin. 2001. Biogeographic concordance and efficiency of taxon indicators for establishing conservation priority in a tropical rainforest biota. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 268:1875-1881.

Moritz, C., J.L. Patton, C.J. Schneider and T.B. Smith. 2000. Diversification of rainforest faunas: An integrated molecular approach. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 31:533-563.

Schneider, C.J.S., M. Cunningham, and C. Moritz. 1998. Comparative phylogeography and the history of vertebrates in the wet tropics rainforests of Australia. Mol. Ecol. 7:487-498.

Moritz, C., and J. Kikkawa (eds.). 1994. Conservation Biology in Australia and Oceania. Sydney: Surrey Beatty & Sons.