Kyle Keepers
Student Alumni
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Kyle received his BA in Pure Mathematics from the College of Charleston.  He is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the Kane Lab in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.  His areas of interest include organellar genome evolution in lichens, diatoms, and vascular plants, as well as in quantifying the degree of coevolution between the photobiont and mycobiont of lichen-forming fungi.  His tenure in the IQ Biology program has improved his quantitative analysis skills that have enabled much of his research.

He did his lab rotations in Dr. Roy Parker's lab in Biochemistry, Dr. Andres Martin's lab in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Dr. Noah Fierer's lab, CIRES Institute and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. 

Pogoda, C.S.*., Keepers, K.G.*, Hamsher, S.E., Stepanek, J.G., Kane, N.C., Kocielek, J.P.  Comparative analysis of the chloroplast genomes of six newly sequenced diatoms reveals group II introns in the barcoding region of cox1. In review at Mitochondrial DNA Part A.

Pogoda, C.S., Keepers, K.G., Lendemer, J.C., Kane, N.C., Tripp, E.A. Reductions in the complexity of mitochondria of lichen-forming fungi shed light on the genome architecture of obligate symbioses. In review at Mol Ecol.

Hamsher, S.E., Keepers, K.G., Stepanek, J.G., Pogoda, C.S., Kane, N.C., Kocielek, J.P. Chloroplast genomes of three closely related Halamphora spp. (Bacillariophyceae): A case of conserved gene content and extensive genome rearrangement. In prep for Genome Biol Evol.

Keepers, K.G.*, Pogoda, C.S.*, Kane, N.C. A CURE-based approach to teaching genomic assembly and annotation to university biology students. In prep for J Microbiol Biol Educ

Gray, DJ, Baker H, Clancy K, Clarke, RC, deCesare K, Fike, J, Gibbs, MJ, Grotenhermen, F, Kane, NC, Keepers, KG, Land, DP, Lynch RC, Mendieta, JP, Merlin, M, Muller-Vahl K, Pauli, CS, Pearson, BJ, Rhan, B, Ruthenberg, TC, Schwartz CJ, Tittes SB, Vergara, D, White KH, Trigiano, RN.  (2017).  Current and Future Needs and Applications for Cannabis.   Crit. Rev in Plant Sciences.  Feb 26:1-2.

Vergara, D., Baker H., Clancy K., Keepers, KG, Mendieta, JP, Pauli, CS, Tittes SB, White, KH, Kane, NC.  (2017).  Genetic and Genomic Tools for Cannabis sativa.  Crit Rev in Plant Sciences.  Feb 25:1-14.

White, KH, Vergara D, Keepers, KG, Kane NC. (2016)  The complete mitochondrial genome for Cannabis sativa.  Mitochondrial DNA Part B:  Nov 1:715-716.

Vergara, D., White, KH., Keepers, KG., Kane, NC. (2015).  The complete chloroplast genomes of Cannabis sativa and Humulus lupulus.  Mitochondrial DNA. Sep 2:1-2.

Keepers, K., Martin, A., Kane, N. (2015).  The complete mitochondrial genome of the Warm Springs pupfish, Cyprinodon nevadensis pectoralis.  Mitochondrial DNA June 10:1-2.

Lauber, C., Metcalf, J., Keepers, K., Ackermann, G., Carter, D., Knight, R. (2014).  Vertebrate decomposition is accelerated by soil microbes.  Appl. and Environ. Microbiol.  2014, 80(16):4920. DOI:  10.1128/AEM.00957-14.

Keepers, K. G. and Martin, A. P. (2014), Fitness landscape of sympatric pupfishes a useful tool for visualizing speciation. Molecular Ecology, 23: 2144–2145. doi: 10.1111/mec.12727

Jessica L Metcalf, Laura Wegener Parfrey, Antonio Gonzalez, Christian L Lauber, Dan Knights, Gail Ackermann, Gregory C Humphrey, Matthew J Gebert, Will Van Treuren, Donna Berg-Lyons, Kyle Keepers, Yan Guo, James Bullard, Noah Fierer, David O Carter, Rob Knight.  "A microbial clock provides an accurate estimate of the postmortem interval in a mouse model system."  eLife 2, e01104–e01104 (2013).

J. L. Metcalf, S. Love Stowell, C. M. Kennedy, K. B. Rogers, D. McDonald, J. Epp, K. Keepers, A. Cooper, J. J. Austin, and A.P. Martin.  "Historical stocking data and 19th century DNA reveal human-induced changes to native diversity and distribution of cutthroat trout.Molecular Ecology 21, 5194–207 (2012)

Keepers, K. and Harrison, GW.  “Internal Flows and Frequency of Internal Overflows in a Large Teaching Hospital.”  Studies in Computational Intelligence, 2009, Volume 189/2009, 185-192.

Keepers, K. and Young, P.  “On Higher Order Lucas-Bernoulli Equations.”  The Fibonacci Quarterly, 46/47 (2008/2009), 26-31.