Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
& Museum of Comparative Zoology
Harvard University
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Ph. 617-496-9099
dcollar@oeb.harvard.edu
Research Interests
The central goal of my research is to understand the factors that make some vertebrate lineages more morphologically and functionally diverse than others. I integrate phylogenetically explicit comparative methods and functional morphology to test how ecology and design properties influence the diversification of form. My general approach involves measuring functional and morphological traits for species and analyzing these data with statistical methods that incorporate information about phylogeny and allow me to detect the effects of diversity-promoting and diversity-limiting factors. Specifically, I have tested the roles of time of independent evolution, the adaptive landscape, and properties of organismal design on diversification in the North American freshwater fish lineage, Centrarchidae, and the reef fish radiation, Labaridae. My postdoctoral research investigates the generality of diversifying mechanisms across squamate lineages.Revell, L. J., L. J. Harmon, and D. C. Collar. In Press. Phylogenetic signal, evolutionary process, and rate. Systematic Biology.
Holzman, R., D. C. Collar, S. W. Day, K. L. Bishop, and P. C. Wainwright. In press. Scaling of suction-induced flows in bluegill: morphological and kinematic predictors for the ontogeny of feeding performance. Journal of Experimental Biology.
Collar, D. C. and P. C. Wainwright. In press. Ecomorphology of the Centrarchidae. In Centrarchid fishes: diversity, biology and conservation. S. J. Cook and D. P. Philipp, eds. Blackwell Scientific Press, Cambridge, UK.
Collar, D. C., P. C. Wainwright, and M. E. Alfaro. 2008. Integrated diversification of locomotion and feeding in labrid fishes. Biology Letters. 4:84-86. (DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0509)
Wainwright, P. C., A. M. Carroll, D. C. Collar, S. W. Day, T. E. Higham and R. A. Holzman. 2007. Suction feeding mechanics, performance and diversity in fishes. Integrative and Comparative Biology 47:96-106.
Collar, D. C. and P. C. Wainwright. 2006. Discordance between morphological and mechanical diversity in the feeding mechanism of centrarchid fishes. Evolution 60:2575-2584.
Collar, D. C., T. J. Near. P. C. Wainwright. 2005. Comparative analysis of morphological diversity: does disparity accumulate at the same rate in two lineages of centrarchid fishes? Evolution 59:1783-1794.
Carroll, A. M., P. C. Wainwright, S. H. Huskey, D. C. Collar, R. G. Turingan. 2004. Morphology predicts suction feeding performance in centrarchid fishes. Journal of Experimental Biology 207:3873-3881.