Joan Garcia-Porta is a biologist studying how organisms adapt and diversify in new environments. His research combines phylogenetics, morphology, ecology and genomics, with investigations of lizards, birds and plants. A recurring question is how environmental differences become differences among populations and species.[ref]
Joan Garcia-Porta research profile at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. First-person research summary and four research themes
In a 2019 study, Joan Garcia-Porta and collaborators combined phylogenomics and fossil calibration to reconstruct a dated phylogenetic tree of 262 species of Lacertidae. They compared this evolutionary history with occupied climate conditions, preferred body temperature and evaporative water loss. Temperate lineages showed slower molecular substitution rates than tropical and desert-adapted lineages.[ref]
Environmental temperatures shape thermal physiology as well as diversification and genome-wide substitution rates in lizards by Joan Garcia-Porta and others. Abstract:262-species dated tree, physiological comparisons and substitution-rate contrast
The illuminating feature is the combination of timescales: DNA differences inform relationships over evolutionary time, while physiological measurements describe what living lizards do now. Their agreement can support a proposed connection between climate and adaptation. A comparative association still needs interpretation; a phylogenetic tree alone does not experimentally demonstrate the cause of a physiological difference.
Joan Garcia-Porta
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