Emma Steigerwald
I am an evolutionary ecologist interested in how climate and disease reshape biodiversity. My work, particularly with amphibians, spans natural history, field ecology, molecular biology, and computational genomics. I specialize in using ancient and highly degraded DNA to uncover ecological and evolutionary histories that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Environmental change genomics
The evolutionary ecology of climate-driven range shifts
Globally, countless species are undergoing elevational and latitudinal range shifts in response to our rapidly changing climate. I am interested in how these range shifts shape spatial patterns in genetic diversity, microbial symbiont communities, and the consequences for species' fitness and continued adaptation to novel challenges. Given my particular interest in amphibians, I am particularly interested in pathogens as novel challenges. How will the climate-driven range shifts of hosts reshape disease transmission and infection outcomes?
Pathogens, their hosts, and climatic shifts in deep time
DNA from sources such as museum specimens and lake sediment provide longer-term historical records of biological communities, but require specialized approaches suited to low abundance, contaminated, and degraded DNA. I am developing molecular tools to delve into these archives, and using these novel tools to ask how host communities have responded to pathogens, climatic shifts, and the interaction between these factors over time.
.png)
Using eDNA to study the
impact of invasive species
Invasive species compose another critically important dimension of global change biology. I hope to show how we can use aquatic environmental DNA to evaluate the impacts of invasive aquatic predators on native stream communities, with a particular focus on impacts for amphibian diversity.
Removing language barriers in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Academia is not currently representative of the rich perspectives and backgrounds diverse scholars can bring to the table. I hope to contribute to making the scientific community more welcoming and our research products more accessible. With the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology working group on Translation, I have been privileged to work with some incredibly thoughtful scholars as we
-
founded an undergraduate seminar called Breaking Language Barriers in Ecology and Evolution (IB 84) that has made multilingual translations of important works in ecology and evolution available on the Understanding Evolution website, and
-
helped establish the first ever UC Berkeley Department of Integrative Biology Science Communication mini-grants.