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Tereza Jezkova

Biographical Information

I study how species respond to environmental change using an interdisciplinary approach including population genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, GIS-based spatial analyses, ecological modeling, and field and experimental research.  

My research addresses the following general questions:

• How do species change their distributions in response to climate change? Do they shift their ranges along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients as climate gets colder or warmer? Or are the species responses to climate change much more complicated?
• Can species adjust their environmental requirements in face of climate change? In other words, when environmental (e.g. climatic) conditions change, can populations simply adjust to these changes via plasticity or evolutionary adaptations?
• Do species adapt to changing climate? This is related to the previous question. In case evolutionary adaptations are needed for populations to adjust to environmental change, what are these adaptations? And where are they in the genome?

Selected Publications

(* ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University graduate student, ** ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University undergraduate student)

Ascanio A*, Bracken JT*, Stevens MHH, Jezkova T. 2024. New theoretical and analytical framework for quantifying and classifying ecological niche differentiation. Ecological Monographs 94 (4), e1622.

Farleigh K*, Ascanio A*, Farleigh M*, Schield DR, Card DC, Castoe TA, Leal M, Jezkova T, Rodríguez-Robles JA. 2023. Signals of differential introgression in the genome of natural hybrids of Caribbean anoles. Molecular Ecology 32 (22), 6000-6017.

Farleigh K*, Jezkova T. 2023. Genetic signals of local adaptation in a desert rodent that occupies diverse climates and habitats. Landscape Ecology 38 (12), 3269-3284.

Bracken JT*, Davis AY, O’Donnell KM, Barichivich WJ, Walls SC, Jezkova T. 2022 Maximizing species distribution model performance using historical occurrence data across environmental variable sets of varying persistency. Ecosphere 13(3) e3951.

Koochekian N*, Ascanio A*, Farleigh K*, Schield DR, Card DC, Castoe TA, Jezkova T. 2022 A chromosome-level genome assembly and annotation of the Desert Horned Lizard, Phrynosoma platyrhinos, provides insight into chromosomal rearrangements among reptiles. GigaScience 11, giab098.

Russell VL*, Stevens MHH, Zeisler AL**, and Jezkova T. Identifying Environmental Factors Driving Differences in Climatic Niche Overlap in Peromyscus Mice. Journal of Mammalogy, 103(1), 45-56.

Farleigh K*, Vladimirova SA*, Blair C, Bracken JT*, Koochekian N*, Finger N, Schield DR, Card DC, Henault J*, Leaché AD, Castoe TA, Jezkova T. 2021. The effects of climate and demographic history in shaping genomic variation across populations of the Desert Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma platyrhinos). Molecular Ecology 30 (18), 4481-4496.

Courses Taught

• BIO 206/206W. Evolutionary Biology
• BIO 409, Herpetology
• BIO 422W/522. Evolutionary and Population Genetics