Evolutionary History

I am broadly interested in understanding the evolutionary history and population genetic structure of organisms.  In particular, I have investigated the history and structure of several anuran species.  However, this research is not limited to terrestrial species as I have also investigated a number of marine taxa.  The common theme of this research is to understand how habitat features, historical demography, and geologic features influence connectivity among populations of a species.  Recently, this research arm has included the use of ecological niche modeling and landscape genetic approaches to analyze genetic differentiation among populations.  Here are some of my publications on these topics:

Trujillo, A. L.*, & Hoffman, E. A. 2017. Uncovering discordance between taxonomy and evolutionary history in Florida raccoons. Systematics and Biodiversity, 15(1), 74-85.

Torrence, Kathleen, G.**, M.D. Correia, and Eric A. Hoffman. 2012. Divergent sympatric lineages of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean crinoid Tropiometra carinata. Invertebrate Biology 131:355-365

Hether, Tyler D.**, and Eric A. Hoffman. 2012. Machine learning identifies specific habitats associated with genetic connectivity in Hyla squirella. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 25:1039-1052

Phillipsen, Ivan C., W. Chris Funk, Eric A. Hoffman, Kirsten J. Monsen, and Michael S. Blouin. 2011. Comparative analyses of effective population size within and among species: ranid frogs as a case study. Evolution 65:2927-2945

Degner, Jacob F.**, Diana M. Silva*, Tyler D. Hether**, Juan M. Daza, and Eric A. Hoffman. 2010. Fat frogs, mobile genes: unexpected phylogeographic patterns for the ornate chorus frog (Pseudacris ornata). Molecular Ecology, 19:2501-2515

Hoffman, Eric A., Jennifer L. Kovacs and Michael A. D. Goodisman. 2008. Genetic structure and breeding system in a social wasp and its social parasite. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008:8:239, pp. 1-13

Hoffman, Eric A., N. Kolm, A. Berglund, J. R. Arguello, and A. G. Jones. 2005. Genetic structure in the coral-reef associated Banggai Cardinalfish, Pterapogon kauderni. Molecular Ecology,14:1367-1375

One particular aspect of a species Evolutionary History that I find interesting is understanding how morphological variation within a species is maintained.  Here are some publications on this topic:

Hoffman, Eric A. and M. A. D. Goodisman. 2007. Gene expression and the evolution of phenotypic diversity in social wasps. BMC Biology 5:23

Hoffman, Eric A., K. Mobley, and A. G. Jones. 2006. Male pregnancy and the evolution of body segmentation in seahorses and pipefish. Evolution, 60:404-410

Hoffman, Eric A., F. W. Schueler, A. G. Jones, and M. S. Blouin. 2006. An assessment of selection on a color polymorphism in the northern leopard frog. Molecular Ecology, 15:2627-2641