ADELA ROA-VARÓN, Ph.D. EVOLUTIONARY ICHTHYOLOGIST
I am an evolutionary ichthyologist and collections-based scientist integrating genomics, morphology, ecology, fossils, and museum specimens to understand how fishes diversify, adapt, and connect across a changing ocean.
MY RESEARCH PROGRAM
Fish-ES is the umbrella for my integrative research on fish diversity, evolution, and spatial ecology. Grounded in fieldwork and voucher- and tissue-linked specimens, the program brings together evolutionary systematics, connectivity across seascapes, and collections-based biodiversity monitoring to understand how evolutionary history, environmental gradients, and dispersal shape fish diversity across space and time.
Across Fish-ES, I investigate fish diversity across three connected scales: its origins in deep time, its organization across contemporary seascapes, and its change through biodiversity monitoring.
DEEP TIME
I investigate how evolutionary history, traits, and environments shape fish diversification through time. My work integrates phylogenomics, systematics, comparative morphology, fossils, and biogeography, with gadiform fishes as a central model clade.
SEASCAPES
I examine how dispersal, habitat structure, and environmental gradients shape population connectivity, ecological differentiation, and habitat use. This work integrates population genomics, otolith chemistry, and spatial ecology across shallow, mesophotic, and deep ecosystems.
BIODIVERSITY THROUGH TIME
I connect museum specimens and extended specimen data with genomic resources, reference libraries, and eDNA to strengthen species detection and biodiversity monitoring across regions and through time.
