Tropical vertebrates are diverse, with poorly studied Afrotropical ecosystems doubtless holding hundreds of unknown vertebrate species, many destined to extinction within the century as deforestation, global warming, and diseases continue. Our main goals, focusing on poorly studied terrestrial vertebrate species (fish, amphibians, and reptiles) distributed across West/Central Africa, are to use the genetic technique in a combination of field surveys, morphological and ecological data to
(1) investigate the diversity of cryptic species and improve knowledge of the diversity of terrestrial vertebrates in poorly explored areas;
(2) examine patterns of species diversification and what contemporary patterns of genetic variation can tell us about the history, ecology, evolution, and conservation status of species in the region,
(3) compare patterns of species richness and endemism across different focal systems,
(4) examine and compare how different species have responded to putative zoogeographic barriers (e.g. mountain, volcanic active line, Dahomey gap, ecological gradients, etc.) across the region.
Our research includes examining specimens in museum collections, fieldwork (collecting ecological and behavioural data, genetic samples including tissue and environmental DNA samples), geometric morphometrics, ecological modelling, laboratory genetic works and metabarcoding.