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

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, wetas, 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 data. Newly developed research directions include transcriptomics and functional genomics of adaptations to environmental stress in stick insects and comparative transcriptomics of weta.

See my web site at Landcare Research:

http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/staff_page.asp?staff_num=1110

For more details on stick insect research see:
http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biosystematics/invertebrates/phasmatodea/

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

Lab members

Alice Dennis (Post Doc): Evolution of cold tolerance in the New Zealand stick insect Niveaphasma annulata
Shelley Myers (PhD): Speciation and the evolution of behaviour in the New Zealand stick insect genus Clitarchus (co-advised with Greg Holwell)
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)
Christina Painting (PhD): Behaviour in New Zealand giraffe weevils (co-advised with Greg Holwell)
Victoria Twort (MSc): Comparative genomics of New Zealand weta species (co-advised with Richard Newcomb)

Recent Publications

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.

<< Our People < Anna Brooks | Esther Bullock >