David Weisenbeck: Phylogenetics and Hybridization of Urban Leopard Frogs

Urbanization fundamentally changes gene flow within and between species by altering how organisms use their environments, disperse, and interact. Habitat fragmentation may limit intraspecific gene flow, leading to reduced genetic variation and in turn lowered ability to adapt and persist. On the other hand, landscape changes may reduce barriers to hybridization, introducing new genetic variation into a population or leading to a breakdown of species boundaries. Four species of closely-related leopard frog distributed across the highly-urbanized northeastern United States present an ideal system to study how urbanization shapes gene flow on a multi-species level, but questions remain about the phylogenetic relationships and hybridization. In this study I will broadly sample four leopard frog species across the highly- urbanized northeastern United States and construct a population genomic dataset to ask: What are the phylogenetic relationships between the species? To what degree does each species hybridize? Are interspecific and intraspecific gene flow correlated with urbanization? This study will This project will serve as a necessary first step for finer-scale studies testing how urbanization shapes gene flow, species interactions, and species persistence.