Robert P. Guralnick

Associate Professor

robert.guralnick@colorado.edu
303-735-0178
Bruce Curtis W348 (office), Bruce Curtis E176 (lab)
Guralnick Lab

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1999

Research Interests

One major line of research that I pursue is biodiversity bioinformatics. My current NSF funded work MaPSTeDI (Mountain and Plains Spatio-Temporal Database-Informatics Initiative; Proposal Number 0110133) links the University of Colorado Museum, Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Denver Botanic Gardens together into a biodiversity database and GIS that can be queried, along with other data, over the World Wide Web.

My other main area of research has been in the area of synthesizing evolutionary, developmental and functional perspectives and datasets. Recent work has moved from clade and species level patterns and processes to pattern and process at the boundary of species and populations. Currently, I am studying morphological and molecular variation and its relation to geography, geology, biotic and abiotic factors in marine and freshwater mollusks.

My interest in biodiversity bioinformatics and population/species level variation dovetail into an integrated, evolutionary approach to documenting the patterns and processes that generate species and genetic biodiversity and how to synthesize, visualize, analyze and make available that information using linked computer databases.

Recent Publications

Guralnick, R. P. In Press. The legacy of past climate and landscape change on species' current experienced climate and elevation ranges across latitude: A multispecies study utilizing mammals in western North America. Global Ecology and Biogeography.

Guralnick, R. P. 2005. Combined molecular and morphological approaches for documenting regional biodiversity and ecological patterns in problematic taxa: A case study utilizing the bivalve group Cyclocalyx (Sphaeriidae, Bivalvia) from western North America. Zoologica Scripta 34(5):469-482.

Guralnick, R. P. and J. Van Cleve. 2005. Strengths and weaknesses of museum and national survey datasets for predicting regional species richness: Comparative and combined approaches. Diversity and Distributions 11(4):349-359.

Guralnick, R. P. and D. Neufeld. 2005. Challenges Building Distributed GIS Services to Support Global Biodiversity Mapping and Analysis: Lessons from the Mountain and Plains Database and Informatics project. Biodiversity Informatics 2:57-69.

Guralnick, R. P. 2004. Life-history patterns in the brooding freshwater bivalve Pisidium (Sphaeriidae). Journal of Molluscan Studies 70: 341-351.

Wethington, A. and R. P. Guralnick . 2004. Are populations of physids from different hot-springs distinctive lineages? American Malacological Bulletin 19(1/2):135-144.

Guralnick, R. P. , E. Hall, and S. Perkins. 2004. A comparative approach to understanding causes and consequences of mollusc-digenean size relationships: A case study with Allocreadiid trematodes and Cyclocalyx clams. Journal of Parasitology 90(6):1253-1262.

Lindberg, D. R. and R. P. Guralnick . 2003. Phyletic patterns of early development in gastropod mollusks. Evolution and Development 5(5):494-507.

Teusch, K. and R. P. Guralnick . 2003. Environmentally-driven variation in ancient populations of turritellids: evaluating the causal link. Paleobiology 29(2):163-180.