Melanie Medina

Melanie arrived with an interest in understanding how sexual selection affects speciation and diversification in gastropods, a group in which complex reproductive systems and mating strategies afford many opportunities for sexual selection to act during lineage divergence. Her M.S. thesis focused on species delimitation and systematics of the taxonomically problematic Elysia tomentosa complex, a group of large-bodied sea slugs. Members of this clade include specialized consumers of highly invasive "killer algae", Caulerpa spp. that have wrought immense ecological and economic damage worldwide.

While a few species have been proposed as biological control of invasive C. taxifolia and C. cylindracea

strains, the degree to which slugs specialize on particular algal species remains unknown, as does the true diversity of Indo-Pacific species. Melanie's work suggests one undescribed Caribbean species in addition to the four described species from that region. Moreover, her data indicate that "E. tomentosa" from the Indo-Pacific comprises at least seven cryptic species, differing in radular and penial morphology. Her study has important implications for understanding how tropical communities may respond to the introduction of invasive green algae, and how species form through divergence in reproductive morphology when host use is relatively conserved.

Melanie came to the lab from Cal State Long Beach, where she did undergraduate work on intertidal ecology. She will be conducting Ph.D. studies with Dr. Don Levitan at Florida State University on sexual selection of marine invertebrates. She presented her research at the 2017 Western Society of Malacologists meeting in L.A.; 2017 Western Society of Naturalists meeting in Pasadena; 2018 Cal State L.A. student research symposium; and 2018 American Malacological Society meeting in Hawaii.