Associate Professor Thomas Buckley

Research Group Leader, Landcare Research

Phone: +64 9 574 4116
Post: Private Bag 92170, Auckland, New Zealand
Email: BuckleyT@landcareresearch.co.nz

Research interests

I am a member of the Joint Graduate School for Biodiversity and Biosecurity and am employed by both Landcare Research and the University of Auckland. My role at Landcare Research involves management of research at the New Zealand Arthropod Collection. At the University of Auckland I supervise graduate students within the Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour research section.

My research focuses on the systematics, biogeography, and conservation genetics of New Zealand terrestrial invertebrates. Current study organisms include stick insects, cicadas, fungus-feeding beetles, tortricid moths, earthworms, weta, onychophorans and land snails. I am particularly interested in the biogeographic origins of the New Zealand biota and evolutionary processes within New Zealand. My interests in systematics also include taxonomy where I am revising the New Zealand stick insect fauna using morphology and genetics. I am also involved in a range of conservation genetics projects on highly threatened invertebrates including land snails, tusked and giant weta. I maintain interests in methods of DNA sequence analysis with an emphasis on model-based phylogenetic methods, model selection, tests of topology, coalescent models and the assembly and analysis of genomic and transcriptomic data. Current research also includes comparative physiology of responses to environmental stress in stick insects. Physiological data are underpinned by studies of transcriptome variation to determine the genes involved in stress response. We are also gathering whole genome data from a stick insect species and giant weta species to reveal adaptive changes associated with speciation and for use in conservation genetics.

Please contact me if you are interested in graduate research in invertebrate systematics and biogeography or insect comparative genomics (weta and stick insects).

See my web site at Landcare Research:

http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/about/people/staff-details?id=YnVja2xleXQ=

For more details on stick insect research see:

http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/plants-animals-fungi/animals/invertebrates/systematics/phasmatodea

For information on my research funded through the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution see:
http://www.allanwilsoncentre.ac.nz/

Research Group members

Alice Dennis (Post Doc): Evolution of cold tolerance in the New Zealand stick insects

Victoria Twort (PhD): Genome evolution, speciation and molecular population genetics of giant weta. (co-advised with Richard Newcomb and Howard Ross)

Chen Wu (PhD): Genome evolution, speciation and molecular population genetics of stick insects. (co-advised with Richard Newcomb and Howard Ross)

Andrew Dopheide (PhD): Molecular ecology and metagenomics in a model ecosystem (co-supervised with Richard Newcomb and Alexei Drummond)

Bernd Steinwender (PhD): Variation in sex reception in male moths (co-supervised with Richard Newcomb).

Shelley Myers (PhD): Speciation and the evolution of behaviour in the New Zealand stick insect genus Clitarchus (co-advised with Greg Holwell)

Dave Seldon (PhD): Thesis topic: Systematics of Mecodema ground beetles (co-supervised with Greg Holwell and Todd Dennis)

Luke Dunning (PhD): The evolutionary genetics of New Zealand alpine stick insects (co-advised with Richard Newcomb)

Rebecca Bennik (PhD): Sexual conflict in the lichen tuft moths (co-advised with Greg Holwell and Robert Hoare)

Christina Painting (PhD): Behaviour in New Zealand giraffe weevils (co-advised with Greg Holwell)

Selected Recent Publications

Dunning, L.T., A.B. Dennis, D.C. Park, B.J. Sinclair, R.D. Newcomb, and Buckley, T.R. (2012). Identification of cold-responsive genes in a New Zealand alpine stick insect using RNA-Seq. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology - Part D: Genomics and Proteomics, in press.

Marshall, D.C., K. Hill, K.A. Marske, C. Chambers, Buckley, T.R. and C. Simon (2012). Limited episodic diversification and contrasting phylogeography in a New Zealand cicada radiation. BMC Evolutionary Biology, in press.

Buckley, T.R. and R.A.B. Leschen (2012). Comparative phylogenetic analysis reveals long term isolation of lineages on the Three Kings Islands, New Zealand. Biological Journal of Linnean Society, in press.

Buckley, T.R., P.M. Johns, R. Palma, D. Gleeson, R.A. Hitchmough and I.A.N. Stringer (2012). Threat classification of small or less well known groups of New Zealand terrestrial invertebrates (2009): Acari, Annelida, Chilopoda, Diplura, Insecta - Dermaptera, Odonata, Phasmatodea, Phthiraptera; Nemertini, Onychophora, Opiliones and Platyhelminthes. New Zealand Entomologist, 35: 137-143.

Marske, K.A., R.A.B. Leschen, Buckley, T.R. (2012). Concerted versus independent evolution and the search for multiple refugia: comparative phylogeography of four forest beetles. Evolution, 66: 1862-1877.

Zhao, Z., D. Li, and Buckley, T.R. (2012). Analysis of primary structure of Hairpin 35 and 48 loops of SSU rRNA gene of Nematoda: further evidence that the genera Tripylina Brzeski, 1963, Trischistoma Cobb, 1913 and Rhabdolaimus de Man, 1880 are members of Enoplida. Zootaxa, 3208: 41-57.

Buckley, T.R., I. Stringer, D. Gleeson, R. Howitt, D. Attanayake, R. Parish, G. Sherley, and M. Rohan (2011). A revision of the New Zealand Placostylus land snails using mitochondrial DNA and shell morphometric analyses, with implications for conservation. New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 38: 55-81.

Marske, K.A., R.A.B. Leschen, Buckley, T.R. (2011). Reconciling phylogeography and ecological niche models for New Zealand beetles: Looking beyond glacial refugia. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 59: 89-102.

Bradler, S. and Buckley, T.R. (2011). Stick insect on unsafe ground: Does a fossil from the Early Eocene of France really link Mesozoic taxa to the extant crown group of Phasmatodea?. Systematic Entomology, 36: 218-222.

Buckley, T.R., S. James, J. Allwood, S. Bartlam. R. Howitt, and D. Prada. (2011). Phylogenetic analysis of New Zealand earthworms (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) reveals ancient clades and cryptic taxonomic diversity. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 58: 85-96.

Buckley, T.R., K. Marske, and D. Attanayake (2010). Phylogeography and ecological niche modelling of the New Zealand stick insect Clitarchus hookeri (White) support survival in multiple coastal refugia. Journal of Biogeography, 37: 682–695.

Allwood, J., D.M. Gleeson, G. Mayer, S. Daniels, J. Beggs and Buckley, T.R. (2010). Support for vicariant origins of the New Zealand Onychophora. Journal of Biogeography, 37: 669–681.

Buckley, T.R., D. Attanayake, J.A.A. Nylander, and S. Bradler (2010). The phylogenetic placement and biogeographical origins of the New Zealand stick insects (Phasmatodea). Systematic Entomology, 35: 207–225.

Buckley, T.R., and S. Bradler (2010). Tepakiphasma ngatikuri, a new genus and species of stick insect (Phasmatodea) from the Far North of New Zealand. New Zealand Entomologist, 33: 118-126.

Marske, K.A., R.A.B. Leschen, G.M. Barker, and Buckley, T.R. (2009). Phylogeography and ecological niche modeling implicate coastal refugia and trans-alpine dispersal of a New Zealand fungus beetle. Molecular Ecology, 18: 5126–5142.

Buckley, T.R., K. Marske, and D. Attanayake (2009). Identifying glacial refugia in a geographic parthenogen using palaeoclimate modeling and phylogeography: the New Zealand stick insect Argosarchus horridus (White). Molecular Ecology, 18: 4650-4663.

Buckley, T.R., D. Attanayake, and S. Bradler (2009). Extreme convergence in stick insect evolution: phylogenetic placement of the Lord Howe Island tree lobster. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 276: 1055-1062.

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