Staff profile

Research Interests

My research interests center broadly on gaining a better understanding of the amazing biodiversity that we see around us today, and how this biodiversity has changed through time. I work on multiple scales at the intersection between ecology, evolution, cellular biology, physiology, and conservation. For example, I investigate questions such as:

 

1) What are the evolutionary relationships between recognized (and cryptic) species?

2) How does ecology play a role in the divergence of populations?

3) How are closely related and ecologically similar species able to coexist?

4) How do species become adapted to their environment?

5) How do species respond to natural and anthropogenic change over time? 

6) How can humans and biodiversity coexist together successfully?

 

To address these questions I employ a variety of genetic techniques, ranging from DNA barcoding, metagenomics, and transciprtomics to full genome sequencing. I incorporate an explicit temporal perspective by sequencing ancient DNA from paleontological, archeological, and historical museum collections. This comprehensive, integrative approach provides the power necessary to address these complex and critically important questions.

 

Interested in joining the lab? There are several opportunities for postdocs, postgraduates (including RCUK-sponsored students), and undergraduate students (including placement students) to join the lab. We value diversity in the lab and I encourage all inquisitive and motivated people to contact me, regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation or background.

 

For more, check out my lab website, my Google Scholar profile or my page on Durham Research Online for copies of papers.

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Chapter in book

• Hailer, F., & Welch, A. (2016). Evolutionary history of brown and polar bears. In Encyclopedia of life sciences (1-8). John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470015902.a0026303

Journal Article

• LaBarge, L. R., Krofel, M., Allen, M. L., Hill, R., Welch, A. J., & Allan, A. T. L. (online). Keystone individuals – linking predator traits to community ecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2024.07.001
• Ferreira, D. F., Jarrett, C., Atagana, P. J., Welch, A. J., Powell, L. L., & Rebelo, H. (2024). The role of landscape context in shaping bat assemblages in African cacao plantations. Science of the Total Environment, 954, Article 176393. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176393
• Lesage, C., Cherel, Y., Delord, K., d’Orchymont, Q., Fretin, M., Levy, M., Welch, A., & Barbraud, C. (2024). Pre-eradication updated seabird survey including new records on Amsterdam Island, southern Indian Ocean. Polar Biology, 47, 1093–1105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-024-03282-5
• Byerly, P. A., Kearns, A. M., Welch, A., Ochirbat, M.-E., Marra, P. P., Wilson, A., Campana, M. G., & Fleischer, R. C. (2024). Museum genomics provide insight into the extinction of a specialist North American warbler species. Scientific Reports, 14(1), Article 17047. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-67595-5
• Michael, N. P., Torres, R., Welch, A. J., Felis, J., Adams, J., Bonillas-Monge, M. E., Hodgson, S., Lopez-Marquez, L., Martínez-Flores, A., Castro-Mejias, G. E., & Wiley, A. E. (2024). Carotenoid skin ornaments as flexible indicators of male foraging behavior in a marine predator: Variation among Mexican colonies of brown booby ( Sula leucogaster ). Marine Biology, 171(5), Article 118. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-024-04429-y
• Baker, K. H., Gray, H. W. I., Lister, A. M., Spassov, N., Welch, A. J., Trantalidou, K., De Cupere, B., Bonillas, E., De Jong, M., Çakırlar, C., Sykes, N., & Hoelzel, A. R. (2024). Ancient and modern DNA track temporal and spatial population dynamics in the European fallow deer since the Eemian interglacial. Scientific Reports, 14, Article 3015. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-48112-6
• Jarrett, C., Cyril, K., Haydon, D. T., Wandji, C. A., Ferreira, D. F., Welch, A. J., Powell, L. L., & Matthiopoulos, J. (2024). Fewer pests and more ecosystem service‐providing arthropods in shady African cocoa farms: Insights from a data integration study. Journal of Applied Ecology, 61(2), 304-315. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14563
• Ferreira, D. F., Darling, A., Jarrett, C., Atagana, P. J., Sandjo, P. R., Taedoumg, H., Welch, A. J., Rebelo, H., & Powell, L. L. (2023). Not all farms are created equal: Shady African cocoa farms promote a richer bat fauna. Biological Conservation, 284, Article 110191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110191
• Hall, B. L., Koch, P. L., Baroni, C., Salvatore, M. C., Hoelzel, A. R., de Bruyn, M., & Welch, A. J. (2023). Widespread southern elephant seal occupation of the Victoria land coast implies a warmer-than-present Ross Sea in the mid-to-late Holocene. Quaternary Science Reviews, 303, Article 107991. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.107991
• Jarrett, C., Haydon, D. T., Morales, J. M., Ferreira, D. F., Alemanji Forzi, F., Welch, A. J., Powell, L. L., & Matthiopoulos, J. (2022). Integration of mark-recapture and acoustic detections for unbiased population estimation in animal communities. Ecology, 103(10), Article e3769. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3769
• Hoenig, B., Snider, A., Forsman, A., Hobson, K., Latta, S., Miller, E., Polito, M., Powell, L., Rogers, S., Sherry, T., Toews, D., Welch, A., Taylor, S., & Porter, B. (2022). Current Methods and Future Directions in Avian Diet Analysis. Ornithology, 139(1), Article ukab077. https://doi.org/10.1093/ornithology/ukab077
• Ferrer-Obiol, J., James, H., Chesser, R., Bretagnolle, V., González-Solís, J., Rozas, J., Welch, A., & Riutort, M. (2022). Palaeoceanographic changes in the late Pliocene promoted rapid diversification in pelagic seabirds. Journal of Biogeography, 49(1), 171-188. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14291
• Obiol, J. F., James, H. F., Chesser, R. T., Bretagnolle, V., González-Solís, J., Rozas, J., Riutort, M., & Welch, A. J. (2021). Integrating Sequence Capture and Restriction Site-Associated DNA Sequencing to resolve Recent Radiations of Pelagic Seabirds. Systematic Biology, 70(5), 976-996. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syaa101
• Jarrett, C., Smith, T., Claire, T., Ferreira, D., Tchoumbou, M., Elikwo, M., Wolfe, J., Brezeski, K., Welch, A., Hanna, R., & Powell, L. (2021). Bird communities in African cocoa agroforestry are diverse but lack specialized insectivores. Journal of Applied Ecology, 58(6), 1237-1247. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13864
• Jarrett, C., Powell, L., McDevitt, H., Helm, B., & Welch, A. (2020). Bitter fruits of hard labour: Diet metabarcoding and telemetry reveal that urban songbirds travel further for lower-quality food. Oecologia, 193(2), 377-388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04678-w
• Ferreira, D. F., Torrent, L., Welch, A. J., Wolfe, J. D., Brzeski, K., & Powell, L. L. (2020). First record of a piebald Bates’s Slit-faced Bat, Nycteris arge (Chiroptera: Nycteridae) from Equatorial Guinea, Central Africa. Barbastella (Alcalá de Henares), 13(1), 88-92. https://doi.org/10.14709/barbj.13.1.2020.14
• Torres, L., Welch, A., Zanchetta, C., Chesser, R., Manno, M., Donnadieu, C., Bretagnolle, V., & Pante, E. (2019). Evidence for a duplicated mitochondrial region in Audubon’s shearwater based on MinION sequencing. Mitochondrial DNA Part A, 30(2), 256-263. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701394.2018.1484116
• Chesser, R., Vaseghi, H., Hosner, P., Bergner, L., Cortes-Rodriguez, M., Welch, A., & Collins, C. (2018). Molecular systematics of swifts of the genus Chaetura (Aves: Apodiformes: Apodidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 128, 162-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2018.07.006
• Michael, N., Torres, R., Welch, A., Adams, J., Bonillas-Monge, M., Felis, J., Lopez-Marquez, L., Martínez-Flores, A., & Wiley, A. (2018). Carotenoid-based skin ornaments reflect foraging propensity in a seabird, Sula leucogaster. Biology Letters, 14(9), Article 20180398. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0398
• Hofman, C., Rick, T., Erlandson, J., Reeder-Myers, L., Welch, A., & Buckley, M. (2018). Collagen fingerprinting and the earliest marine mammal hunting in North America. Scientific Reports, 8, Article 10014. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-28224-0
• Gray, H., Nishida, S., Welch, A., Moura, A., Tanabe, S., Kiani, M., Culloch, R., Möller, L., Natoli, A., Ponnampalam, L., Minton, G., Gore, M., Collins, T., Willson, A., Baldwin, R., & Hoelzel, A. (2018). Cryptic Lineage Differentiation Among Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) in the Northwest Indian Ocean. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 122, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2017.12.027
• Welch, A., Collins, K., Ratan, A., Drautz-Moses, D., Schuster, S., & Lindqvist, C. (2016). The quest to resolve recent radiations: Plastid phylogenomics of extinct and endangered Hawaiian endemic mints (Lamiaceae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 99, 16-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2016.02.024
• Welch, A., Collins, K., Ratan, A., Drautz-Moses, D., Schuster, S., & Lindqvist, C. (2016). Data characterizing the chloroplast genomes of extinct and endangered Hawaiian endemic mints (Lamiaceae) and their close relatives. Data in Brief, 7, 900-922. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2016.03.037
• Moura, A., Kenny, J., Chaudhuri, R., Hughes, M., Welch, A., Reisinger, R., de Bruyn, P., Dahlheim, M., Hall, N., & Hoelzel, A. (2014). Population genomics of the killer whale indicates ecotype evolution in sympatry involving both selection and drift. Molecular Ecology, 23(21), 5179-5192. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.12929
• Welch, A., Olson, S., & Fleischer, R. (2014). Phylogenetic relationships of the extinct St Helena petrel, Pterodroma rupinarum Olson, 1975 (Procellariiformes: Procellariidae), based on ancient DNA. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 170(3), 494-505. https://doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12078
• Welch, A., Bedoya-Reina, O., Carretero-Paulet, L., Miller, W., Rode, K., & Lindqvist, C. (2014). Polar Bears Exhibit Genome-Wide Signatures of Bioenergetic Adaptation to Life in the Arctic Environment. Genome Biology and Evolution, 6(2), 433-450. https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evu025
• Ibarra-Laclette, E., Lyons, E., Hernández-Guzmán, G., Pérez-Torres, C., Carretero-Paulet, L., Chang, T.-H., Lan, T., Welch, A., Abraham Juárez, M., Simpson, J., Fernández-Cortés, A., Arteaga-Vázquez, M., Góngora-Castillo, E., Acevedo-Hernández, A., Schuster, S., Himmelbauer, H., Minoche, A., Xu, S., Lynch, M., Oropeza-Aburto, A., …Herrera-Estrella, L. (2013). Architecture and evolution of a minute plant genome. Nature, 498(7452), 94-98. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12132
• Wiley, A., Ostrom, P., Welch, A., Fleischer, R., Gandhi, H., Southon, J., Stafford, T., Penniman, J., Hu, D., Duvall, F., & James, H. (2013). Millennial-scale isotope records from a wide-ranging predator show evidence of recent human impact to oceanic food webs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(22), 8972-8977. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1300213110