Assistant Director
office: 221 Wellman Hall
phone: 510-642-3445
email: gillespie@berkeley.edu
Website: https://nature.berkeley.edu/evolab/
Background
Schlinger Chair in Systematics and Professor, Dept. Environmental Science, University of California, Berkeley; and Assistant Director, Essig Museum of Entomology. Previously, Chair, Graduate Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, University of Hawaii, Professor of Zoology & Center for Conservation Research & Training, University of Hawaii. Undergraduate degree (BSc) University of Edinburgh, Scotland. PhD University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Currently a Fellow in Royal Entomological Society and California Academy of Sciences. Also, Treasurer, board member, International Society Arachnology. President-elect, American Arachnological Society. Board of Directors, Natural Science Collections Alliance. Project Leader, NSF training grant to connect graduate students in the Berkeley Natural History Museums with the local K-12 community.
Research Interests
My research interests involve patterns of diversification, adaptive radiation, and associated community assembly, focusing on spiders and insects on remote oceanic islands, in particular the Hawaiian Islands, but also French Polynesia, Micronesia and Fiji.
Selected Publications
Gillespie, R.G., E.M. Claridge, and G.K. Roderick. 2008. Biodiversity dynamics in isolated island communities: Interaction between natural and human-mediated processes. Molecular Ecology 17: 45-87.
Gillespie, R. G. 2004. Community assembly through adaptive radiation in Hawaiian spiders. Science 303 (5656): 356-359.
Arnedo, M.A., I. Agnarsson, and R.G. Gillespie. 2007. Molecular Insights into the phylogenetic structure of the spider genus Theridion (Araneae, Theridiidae) and the origin of the Hawaiian Theridion-like fauna. Zoologica Scripta 36: 337-352.
Blackledge, T.A., and R.G. Gillespie. 2004. Convergent evolution of behavior in an adaptive radiation of Hawaiian web-building spiders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 101(46): 16228-16233.
Garb, J.E., and R.G. Gillespie. 2006. Island hopping across the central Pacific: mitochondrial DNA detects sequential colonization of the Austral Islands by crab spiders (Araneae: Thomisidae). Journal of Biogeography 33(2): 201-220.
Gillespie R.G., and M.A. Rivera. 2007. Free-Living Spiders of the Genus Ariamnes (Araneae, Theridiidae) in Hawaii. Journal of Arachnology 35: 11-37.
Arnedo, M.A., and R.G. Gillespie. 2006. Species diversification patterns in the Polynesian jumping spider genus Havaika Proszynski 2001 (Araneae, Salticidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41: 472-495.
Spagna, J., and R.G. Gillespie. 2008. More loci, fewer shifts: improving understanding of evolution of the spinning apparatus in non-orb-weaving spiders. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 46: 347-368.
Garb, J.E., A. Gonz�lez, and R.G. Gillespie. 2004. The black widow spider genus Latrodectus (Araneae: Theridiidae): phylogeny, biogeography and invasion history. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 31(3): 1127-1142.
Vandergast, A.G., R.G. Gillespie, and G.K. Roderick. 2004. Influences of volcanic activity on the population genetic structure of Hawaiian Tetragnatha. Molecular Ecology 13: 1729-1743.
Arnedo, M.A., J. Coddington, I. Agnarsson, R.G. Gillespie. 2004. From a Comb to a Tree: Phylogenetic Relationships of the Comb-footed Spiders (Araneae, Theridiidae) Inferred from Nuclear and Mitochondrial Genes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 31: 225-245.