Jake Esselstyn
Associate Professor
Phone: 225-578-3083
Office: 108 Foster Hall
E-mail: esselstyn@lsu.edu
Area of Interest
My research focuses on the evolutionary history of small mammals, particularly in the island archipelagos of Southeast Asia. In general, I combine biodiversity inventories with molecular and morphological systematics to understand how organisms diversify and fill the environment. I am especially interested in the effects of ecological opportunity, time of colonization, and incumbency on the tempo and mode of speciation, molecular evolution, and phenotypic diversification. Additional details are provided on my lab web-site.
Selected Publications
Nations, JA, GG Mount, SM Morere, AS Achmadi, KC Rowe, JA Esselstyn. 2021. Locomotory mode transitions alter phenotypic evolution and lineage diversification in an ecologically rich clade of mammals. Evolution. 75:376–393.
Roycroft, E, A Achmadi, CM Callahan, JA Esselstyn, JM Good, A Moussalli, KC Rowe. 2021. Molecular evolution of ecological specialisation: genomic insights from the diversification of murine rodents. Genome Biology and Evolution. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evab103.
Upham, NS, JA Esselstyn, W Jetz. 2021. Molecules and fossils tell distinct yet complementary stories of mammal diversification. Current Biology. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.07.012.
Esselstyn, JA, AS Achmadi, H Handika, TC Giarla, KC Rowe. 2019. A new climbing shrew from Sulawesi highlights the tangled taxonomy of an endemic radiation. Journal of Mammalogy. 100:1713-1725.
Swanson, MT, CH Oliveros, JA Esselstyn. 2019. A phylogenomic rodent tree reveals the repeated evolution of masseter architectures. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences. 286. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.0672.
Upham, NS, JA Esselstyn, W Jetz. 2019. Inferring the mammal tree: Species level sets of phylogenies for questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. PLoS Biology. 17(12): e3000494.
Demos, TC, AS Achmadi, TC Giarla, H Handika, Maharadatunkamsi, KC Rowe & JA Esselstyn. 2016. Local endemism and within-island diversification of shrews illustrate the importance of speciation in building Sundaland mammal diversity. Molecular Ecology. DOI:10.1111/mec.13820.
Rowe, KC, AS Achmadi & JA Esselstyn. 2016. Repeated evolution of carnivory among Indo-Australian rodents. Evolution. 70:653-665.
Esselstyn, JA, AS Achmadi, H Handika & KC Rowe. 2015. A hog-nosed shrew rat (Rodentia: Muridae) from Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. Journal of Mammalogy. 96:895-907.
Giarla, TC & JA Esselstyn. 2015. The challenges of resolving a rapid, recent radiation: empirical and simulated phylogenomics of Philippine shrews. Systematic Biology. 64:727-740.
Esselstyn JA, AS Achmadi & KC Rowe. 2012. Evolutionary novelty in a rat with no molars. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098.rsbl.2012.0574.
Esselstyn JA, BJ Evans, JL Sedlock, FAA Khan & LR Heaney. 2012. Single-locus species de-limitation: A test of the mixed Yule-coalescent model, with an empirical application to Philippine round-leaf bats. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279:3678–3686.