Elmer Lab

 I'm honoured to have been awarded the Zoological Society of London Scientific Medal for 2023. 

Published as free and open access in the Scottish Geographical Journal  How glaciation impacted evolutionary history and contemporary genetic diversity of flora and fauna in the British Isles Patterns of contemporary genetic diversity and differentiation are often strongly influenced by historical processes. In previously glaciated regions, the patterns of changing ice coverage during the last ice age would have had a major effect on contemporary diversity and differentiation but exploration of the impact of ice coverage remains poorly explored in evolutionary studies. In this paper, we reviewed our understanding of how ice coverage changed in the British Isles during the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 27,000-11,000 years ago). We then demonstrated the impact of these changing ice coverage on the diversity of numerous flora and fauna species both through it influenced the routes and timing of colonisation and through the isolation of populations into different glacial refugia during glac