My research program is built around understanding the rules of life that control the expression and number of biological forms in nature, discovering how these rules affect biodiversity over micro- and macro-evolutionary scales, and exposing their relevance for the preservation of extant biodiversity. 

The primary rules of life I study are physiological constraints that are modulated by the environmental availability of key metabolic resources. These ecophysiological constraints alter the amount of energy required for trait synthesis and function and are directly controlled by the environment. Ecophysiological constraints are one of the major factors shaping historical and future predicted spatial patterns of biodiversity, macroevolutionary trait evolution, and population level adaptive divergence/speciation.

I approach all my research goals with the mentality of "there is always a tool available to address this question and I just need to learn it," which led to my acquisition of genomic, morphological, ecological, statistical, and machine-learning tools during my dissertation. During the next phase of my research program, I am looking to continue to add to my toolset and pass on my knowledge to my colleagues and students.

Ecophysiological constrained adaptive divergence

The genetic architecture underlying locally adapted traits can provide key clues as to the long-term dynamics of local adaptation and potential for hybrid collapse. During my dissertation, I constructed a model system (Oreohelix land snails) for studying genomic signatures of ecophysiological constraint release. Many transitions of ornamented (heavily biomineralized structures) to smooth forms from geographically separated areas, well documented clines of shell expression, and a new genomic assembly have allowed I and my co-authors to study the process of ecophysiological constraints release as a fine genomic scale. I seek to detect genes associated with ecophysiologically constrained morphological divergence, whether divergence is significant enough to warrant species recognition (Linscott et al. 2020; Linscott et al. 2022), and whether ecophysiological constraint dynamics have played a significant role in the diversification of the group. Already we have identified that large structural changes in genome architecture brought about by a massive LTR retrotransposon expansion has influenced biomineralization gene composition. Future work will continue to elucidate how such massive repetitive elements can reshape EPC trait expression of Oreohelix species in the context of resource availability.

I also have ongoing collaborations to investigate ecophysiological constraint associated genomic architecture in other gastropod systems (Bahamian/Floridian Cerion land snails) that seek to understand how different genomic contexts and mineral resources influence the evolvability of ecophysiologically constrained traits.

Spatial ecology and forecasting of ecophysiological constraints

One of the major ecophysiological constraints present in nature is the environmental availability of minerals and biomineralization expression. However, the degree to which this constraint limits trait expression amongst different biomineralizing taxa remains unclear. At small spatial scales, I use isotope ecology and experimental measures of trait function to quantify causal relationships between macronutrient resources and trait expression.  To study these constraints at a broad spatial scale, I use object detection approaches and large spatial datasets to rapidly quantify the association of species traits with the underlying resources across the landscape. These dual approaches allow us to identify causal relationships between understudied macronutrient sources and trait expression and to predict how entire ecosystems may change as a result of shifts in nutrient availability.

I have used these approaches primarily within gastropods to enable morphological classification of species and distributional projections ecophysiologically constrained gastropod species. The large amount of data mined from these dual approaches is being used to address the global association of gastropod biomineralization with CaCO3 in marine and terrestrial contexts (Linscott et al. 2023; JBI), and to predict the impact of ocean acidification on biomineralization output and ecosystem function (Linscott and Parent, in prep).

Macroevolutionary dynamics of ecophysiological constraints

All life has evolved within a fluctuating set of environmental constraints which modulate the expression of forms in nature. While widely acknowledged as factors influencing the evolution of traits across macroevolutionary time, there are few phylogenetic comparative methods which incorporate temporal environmental data in trait evolution. This methodological gap is particularly problematic for the study of ecophysiologically constrained traits, traits whose expression is constrained by the availability of key metabolic resources in the environment (e.g. biomineralization and mineral availability). Ecophysiological trait expression can directly affect the available niche spaces of lineages as their expression is often tightly linked to organismal survival. To address this gap, in my post-doc I developed models that utilizes temporal environmental data of ecophysiological constrained traits to estimate how the environment may alter macroevolutionary parameters of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models of trait evolution (Linscott and Uyeda, in prep).

Collaborations: phylogeography and all the rest

I have a number of ongoing collaborations spanning Galapagos Naesiotus to Asian ancient lake endemic Viviparidae. For these projects, I largely conduct phylogeographic, phylogenetic analyses, (see above figure for an example of some of my work) and genomic data processing to support these projects. I am always open to discussing new collaborations and grant proposals in any kind of system or theoretical framework.