Alexander M. Kerr

Assistant Professor of Marine Biology

BA magna cum laude, MSc Univ Guam; MPhil, PhD Yale

alexander.kerr@aya.yale.edu

Curriculum Vitae

I'm originally from Canada and have lived most of my life on the Micronesian island of Guam, where I surfed, learnt how to cha-cha, met my wife Joni and began our family of three children Alexandra Isa, Alana Capella and Roy Aguarin. I attempt to play classical guitar and the bagpipes. I've served in the US military as a civil engineer and a combat medic. I have an Erdös number of 4.

I am interested in the comparative evolution and phylogenetics of two important groups of coral-reef organisms, corals and echinoderms. Using supertree techniques, we have recently produced the most comprehensive phylogeny of scleractinian corals. Also, with colleagues, we have recently estimated the first class-level phylogeny of Holothuroidea, the sea cucumbers, from nucleotide sequences and morphological characters. These are some pretty big trees, with over 350 and 200 species, respectively. Using these estimates and comparative methods, we are testing hypotheses with a previously unavailable statistical power about how invertebrates diversified into a relatively new environment, scleractinian coral reefs. An organism's potential to adapt to a novel environment depends in part upon its history of evolving features needed in previous environs. Replicate radiations of corals and echinoderms into an identical ecosystem permit one to test such questions as: How has the history of these organisms prior to their expansion in the tropics constrained or facilitated their diversification onto coral reefs? How has the evolution of ecological innovation influenced the tropics as a source or sink for global diversity?