The Evolution of the Toxin Uptake System in Poison Frogs

Jeffrey Coleman

I have had a lifelong passion for the outdoors, and I knew from the age of 12 that I wanted to be a scientist. I received my B.A. in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, where I completed an honors thesis on New World monkey evolution and comparative morphology. This experience got me hooked on studying animals that live in tropical Central and South America, so I spent several years post-college as a Research Scientist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago studying conservation genetics in keel-billed toucans from Panama. As part of a side project during this time, I also investigated how natural selection has affected the evolutionary history of immune genes (called toll-like receptors) that the bird family Corvidae—which includes crows and blue jays—use to defend themselves against West Nile virus. Given that no animal seems to epitomize the Neotropics more than poison frogs, I decided to focus on this extraordinary group of amphibians for my Ph.D. My research agenda is centered on a particular genus of poison frogs that live in Ecuador, called Epipedobates: I have a deep curiosity about how their diets have driven increased levels of toxicity in their skin, what genetic mechanisms have allowed them to be toxic, and how metabolic costs of display and defense play out in their DNA.

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