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email:  tbsmith@ucla.edu
phone:  310-206-4712
fax:  310-825-5446
office:  La Kretz Hall Suite 300,
lab:  Life Science 5318
homepage:  http://www.ioe.ucla.edu/ctr

research interests:  Evolutionary ecology, speciation, and conservation of vertebrates, especially in the tropics.

Research Interests

Currently, my research focuses on: 1. Mechanisms of speciation, 2. Ecological and evolutionary aspects of vertebrate-mediated seed dispersal in the maintenance and dynamics of rainforests, 3. Molecular genetic approaches to investigating microevolutionary divergence and population genetic structure of migrant birds, 4. Evolution of resource polymorphisms, 5. Ecology of disease, and 6. Conservation biology. Field sites include West Africa, North, South, and Central America, and Australia. In addition to my appointment in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, I am also the Director of the Center for Tropical Research (CTR), UCLA Institute of the Environment http://www.ioe.ucla.edu/CTR

Selected Publications

Smith, T. B. and L. Bernatchez. 2008. Evolutionary change in human-altered environments Molecular Ecology 17: 1-8 .

Smith, T. B., B. Mila, G. F. Grether, H. Slabbekoorn, I. Sepil, W. Buermann, S. Saatchi, and J. P. Pollinger. 2008. Evolutionary consequences of human disturbance in a rainforest bird species from central Africa Molecular Ecology 17: 58-71 .

Calsbeek, R., and T. B. Smith. 2008. Experimentally replicated disruptive selection on performance traits in a Caribbean lizard Evolution 62: 478-484 .

Tori, W. P., R. Durães, T. B. Ryder, M. Anciães, J. Karubian, R. H. Macedo, J. A. C. Uy, P. G. Parker, T. B. Smith, A. C. Stein, M. S. Webster, J. G. Blake, and B. A. Loiselle. 2008. Advances in sexual selection theory: insights from tropical avifauna Ornitología Neotropical 19: 151-163 .

Buermann, W., S. Saatchi, T. B. Smith, B. R. Zutta, J. A. Chaves, B. Milá, and C. H. Graham. 2008. Predicting species distributions across the Amazonian and Andean regions using remote sensing data Journal of Biogeography 35: 1160-1176 .

McCormack, J. E., A. T. Peterson, E. Bonaccorso, and T. B. Smith. 2008. Speciation in the highlands of Mexico: genetic and phenotypic divergence in the Mexican jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina) Molecular Ecology 17: 2505-2521 .

Calsbeek, R., and T.B. Smith. 2007. Probing the adaptive landscape using experimental islands: density dependent natural selection on lizard body size Evolution 61: 1052-1061 .

Mila, B., J. E. McCormack, G. Castenada, R. K. Wayne, and T. B. Smith. 2007. Recent postglacial range expansion drives the rapid diversification of a songbird lineage in the genus Junco Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274: 2653-2660 .

Ruegg, K., H. Slabbekoorn, S. Clegg, and T.B. Smith. 2006. Divergence in mating signals correlates with ecological variation in the migratory songbird, Swainson's Thrush (Catharus ustulatus) Molecular Ecology 15: 3147-3156 .

Mila, B., S.M. Clegg, M. Kimura, K. Ruegg, I. Lovette, and T.B. Smith. 2005. Linking breeding and overwintering areas of five Nearctic-Neotropical migratory passerines using molecular genetic markers In: Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas: Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference; March 20-24, 2002, Asilomar, California United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, and Pacific Southwest Research Station 2: 889-892 .