On my first day at UCF, my colleague Linda Walters walked into my office and mentioned that she had a general idea that she though we should collaborate on. Her idea was to investigate ecological (Dr. Walters) and genetic (me) aspects of invasive species that had only recently been observed invading the Florida Atlantic coast.
This research has proved to be quite interesting and fruitful. See below for publications. These studies have focused on three non-native species, Mytella charruana, Megabalanus coccopoma, and Perna viridis.
Earlier publications:
Gillis, Nancy K.*, Linda J. Walters, Flavio C. Fernandes and Eric A. Hoffman. 2009. Genetic structure of native and introduced populations of the charru mussel Mytella charruana. Diversity and Distributions, 15:784-795