I have a broad interest in global diversification patterns - and the processes that govern them. My research thus far has focused primarily on the phylogenetic diversification of amphibians (my model group), I have concentrated mainly on the continent of Africa (my model area). My research is characterized by the integration of a broad range of techniques - fieldwork, taxonomy, molecular and morphological systematics, traditional descriptive and modern biogeographic approaches - used to interpret patterns of diversity in Africa, particularly rainforest habitats. This work has generated a number of interesting questions regarding diversification patterns in amphibians. By extending both the geographic and taxonomic scale of my analyses I intend to tackle broader questions in African biogeography.

Our research concentrates on using systematics - principally molecular based approaches - as a basis for understanding biogeographic patterns. We focus on the diverse tropical habitats of Africa, which are relatively poorly understood and are highly threatened by environmental change. Our work has so far mainly concentrated on sub-Saharan amphibians, including caecilians and frogs and we focus on these case studies in order to investigate a number of questions in biogeography and ecology. We use various taxonomic techniques to determine species’ limits and their distributions. Using almost exclusively molecular phylogenetic approaches we aim to understand the spatial and temporal patterns of lineages and the areas they occur in. Studying these patterns is important for the understanding of the long term evolutionary history of ecoregions and will also serve to inform conservation policies. I have mainly specialised on East African amphibians, and future work will extend both the geographic and taxonomic scope of these topics.