Dave Blackburn, Postdoctoral Associate

Dave Blackburn’s Research

Blackburn studies patterns of historical change in phenotypes and geographic distributions among different groups of living amphibians using phylogenetic and comparative methods. His interests in phenotypic diversity and evolution include studies of developmental and functional morphology, and extend to involvement in projects building web- and ontology-based resources for investigating morphological diversity. His biogeographic work focuses on understanding the deep-time history of sub-Saharan Africa. Past and on-going work has focused on montane frogs, especially in Central Africa. This work is currently extending to northern Africa where he will be focusing on understanding the history of oases in the Central Sahara and the boundary between the faunas of the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa; this project is a collaboration with Aaron Bauer (Villanova University) and funded by NSF.