Seema Sheth

Area(s) of Expertise

I study the processes that promote or hinder adaptation to climate at various levels of biological organization, ranging from populations to species to deeper evolutionary lineages. I examine the effects of genetic variation, traits, and fitness on populations’ abilities to adapt to novel conditions such as those beyond range edges or those that have arisen due to climatic changes. Further, I seek to understand why some species have the ability to evolve broad climatic niches and large geographic ranges, while other species are narrowly restricted to a limited range of environments and places. At deeper evolutionary timescales, I am interested in understanding the mechanisms underlying variation in species richness and diversification rates among lineages. This work aims to obtain a comprehensive understanding of how populations, species, and deeper evolutionary lineages respond to environmental changes.