Biodiversity

B.A., Pasadena College, California, 1970
M.A., San Francisco State University, California, 1976
Ph.D., Biology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1982

I am a Senior Curator of Herpetology in the Department of Natural History at the ROM, Professor of Zoology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, and Senior Visiting Professor, Laboratory of Molecular Evolution & Genome Diversity, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

I joined the ROM in 1984 after postdoctoral studies at UCLA Medical School, where my research focused on flow cytometry and the diagnosis of forms of cancer, as well as the conservation genetics of fishes. Since joining the ROM, I have maintained an active research programme that includes a steady stream of graduate students from the University of Toronto.

My research interests and publications extend far beyond herpetology and enter into the development of molecular technologies for documenting genetic diversity, to conservation genetics, evolutionary relationships, genomics, DNA barcoding, and behavioral genetics. I also describe some new species. In terms of organisms, my interests span from viruses, bacteria and fungi through insects and other invertebrates to all groups of vertebrates. For example, one current focus of my lab involves the conservation genetics of Polar Bears. This collaborative project also engages Inuit hunters and elders, and thus it is an interdisciplinary initiative.

My specialty in animals and collection building is amphibians and non-avian reptiles and I have studied them in diverse places such as Australia, Mexico, Russia, The Republic of Georgia, Armenia, China, and Vietnam. This effort has resulted in the ROM being famous for having one of the world's largest collections of amphibian and reptilian tissue samples for genetic research.

Among my activities, I am a co-founder of the Genome 10K project (see link below), an initiative to sequence the complete genomes of 10,000 species of vertebrates, as well as ColdCode, the international effort to DNA barcode species of amphibians and reptiles. I am committed to the ROM’s display of living organisms discovered by ROM researchers, and to their conservation through genetic research, education and captive propagation. My home page at the University of Toronto contains more information about my travels, lab and research projects, and even a phylogenetic rock opera! A link is provided below.

Other Links

• Murphy Lab Pages, University of Toronto
• Genome 10K
• Desert Tortoise Council

Licenciate in Biology, Universidad de Los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, 1998 Ph.D., Texas A&M University, 2004
Postdoctoral Fellow, Integrative Biology (Dan Bolnick Lab), University of Texas at Austin, 2005
Postdoctoral Research Associate, EEB program (Kirk Winemiller lab), Texas A&M University, 2006

Hernán López-Fernández is a Curator of Ichthyology in the Department of Natural History at the ROM.

Hernán was born in Montevideo, Uruguay but lived most of his life in Venezuela. His fascination with fishes started at an early age when his father bought him the first of many aquariums. A few years later, he discovered cichlid fishes and decided to dedicate his career to studying them. For his B.Sc., he studied the feeding ecology of cichlids of the genus Satanoperca with Donald Taphorn. He then moved to the United States to obtain his Ph.D., studying the phylogeny of geophagine cichlids under Kirk Winemiller and Rodney Honeycutt. Following that, he went to the University of Texas at Austin as a postdoctoral fellow in Daniel Bolnick’s lab, to work on the genetics of speciation in North American sunfishes in the genus Lepomis. In 2006, he returned to Texas A&M as a postdoctoral fellow funded by the US National Science Foundation to continue studying phylogenetics, adaptive radiation and convergent evolution in cichlids from South and Central America.

As a Curator at the ROM, Hernán's research focuses on the evolutionary biology of South and Central American cichlids. The freshwaters of South and Central America are estimated to harbor well over 6,000 species of fishes; more than any other biogeographic region on Earth. Among this great diversity, cichlid fishes are remarkable for their morphological, ecological and behavioral diversity. Although cichlids are well-known models of adaptive evolution in lakes, little is known about their diversification in rivers. Hernán combines field and laboratory research in systematics, biogeography and evolutionary biology to study the radiations of American cichlids as models of the evolutionary history of Neotropical fishes. Comparative evolutionary studies of cichlids and other groups should provide a powerful tool to understand the origin of the most diverse freshwater fish fauna on the planet.

Other Links

Three new South American Fish identified

B.Sc., University of Bucharest, Romania
M.Sc., University of Bucharest, Romania

Simona Margaritescu is a mycology technician in the Department of Natural History.

Simona joined the ROM in 2004 to fill in a newly created position of Mycology technician. Her position has two main facets. She manages the ROM’s fungal herbarium (TRTC) and is responsible for the operations of the Mycology molecular laboratory.

As the TRTC manager, Simona is responsible for the maintenance, preparation and identification of the fungal collections as well as the handling of loans and exchanges with other herbaria. In addition, she has been developing and managing the electronic database associated with these collections. Simona teaches specimen preparation and data recording techniques to casual staff, summer students and volunteers. She also responds to general inquiries about fungi and occasionally guides tours in the ROM’s fungal herbarium.

Besides her collection management responsibilities, Simona directs the day-to-day running of the Mycology molecular laboratory and assists in fungal research projects by generating and analyzing molecular data of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from various fungal species. She also teaches laboratory techniques to graduate and undergraduate students as well as visiting scholars.

B.Sc., Queen’s University, 1974
M.Sc., University of Utah, 1978
Ph.D., Cornell University, 1983

Christopher Darling is a Senior Curator of Entomology in the Department of Natural History at the ROM.

Chris conducts collection-based research on the systematics and biology of parasitic Hymenoptera. He is a world authority on the taxonomy of the Perilampidae, a small family of wasps that occurs on all continents except Antarctica. His research is based on comparative morphology and taxonomic revisions and has as its goal a comprehensive understanding of the diversity and evolutionary relationships of these wasps. He is also interested in the historical biogeography and the evolution of host associations in parasitic Hymenoptera; that is, where they are found and why, as well as what they are doing. This has resulted in extensive field work throughout Southeast Asia, including India, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. He is currently coordinating the field work activities in Gunung Mulu National Park for the Platygastroidea Planetary Biotic Inventory Project which is funded by NSF (USA). Chris also conducts fieldwork in Ontario and has studied the interaction of bluebirds and blowflies, goldenrods and their gallmakers, and a variety of wood-infesting beetles and their natural enemies.

Chris is actively involved in the growth and curation of the ROM’s insect collection and in the Museum’s public programs and exhibitions. He is a strong advocate of the importance of natural history and conducts research on insect-plant interactions in the tropics. He is enthusiastic about promoting the fascinating world of insects—and their importance in human affairs—to a variety of audiences. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Toronto Entomologists’ Association and is a member of the Entomological Society of Ontario and the Entomological Society of Canada. Chris is also a professor in the Department of Zoology, University of Toronto and teaches undergraduate courses in entomology and conservation biology, supervises undergraduate and graduate students, and teaches field courses in the New World and Old World tropics.

Other Links

B.Sc. (Honours), Zoology, University of Alberta, 1978
Ph.D., Entomology, University of Alberta, 1988

Doug Currie is Senior Curator of Entomology at the ROM and Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto.

Doug’s Ph.D. dissertation, Morphology and Systematics of Primitive Simuliidae, examined the early evolutionary relationships of black flies — a notorious pest of birds and mammals. He joined the ROM in 1993 after post-doctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia (1990 – 1992) and the Canadian National Collection of Insects and Arachnids in Ottawa, Ontario (1992 – 1993). He is actively engaged in teaching at the graduate- and undergraduate levels through his cross-appointment to the University of Toronto.

Doug’s research interests are focused on the systematics and comparative biology of aquatic insects, with special reference to black flies. His emphasis on aquatic organisms maintains a long-standing focus of ROM entomology, which includes the research collections of Edmund M. Walker (1918 – 1968, dragonflies and damselflies) and Glenn B. Wiggins (1952 – present, caddisflies). Doug continues to study the morphology and systematics of world black flies, but now includes cutting-edge approaches to help address long standing species-identity problems. His current research focuses on the diversity and biogeography of northern Holarctic black flies, and is based on material collected from major expeditions to Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory, Alaska and eastern Siberia. Doug’s recent book The Black Flies (Simuliidae) of North America — co-authored with Peter H. Adler and D. Monty Wood — received the Association of American Publishers Award for Best Single-Volume Reference in the Sciences in 2004.