Blair Hedges Stephen Blair Hedges (known as S. Blair Hedges) is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Science and director of the Center for

Biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

where he researches the

tree of life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythology, mythological, religion, religious, and philosophy, philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The ...

and leads conservation efforts in

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

and elsewhere. He co-founded Haiti National Trust.

Career

Hedges has a Bachelor of Science undergraduate degree from

George Mason University George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father ...

, and a Masters and PhD in

Zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

from the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

, supervised by Richard Highton. Before he joined Temple University in 2014, he was a professor at

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with ca ...

. He is also a founding member of the NASA

Astrobiology Astrobiology (also xenology or exobiology) is a scientific field within the List of life sciences, life and environmental sciences that studies the abiogenesis, origins, Protocell, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the univ ...

Center. He has published over 300

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

works including 10 books and monographs. He was elected as a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

in 2009 for "revealing connections between biological evolution and Earth history in diverse groups of organisms", and was awarded the 2011 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Life and Health Sciences. A Cuban butterfly ('' Leptodes hedgesi'' Schwartz & Johnson 1992), Cuban frog ('' Eleutherodactylus blairhedgesi'' Estrada, Diaz, & Rodriguez 1997), and Cuban millipede ('' Amphelictogon blairi'' Perez-Asso 1998) have been named in his honor.

Research

Hedges has studied the relationships and timing of major groups in the tree of life using genomic data. This research has led to a number of discoveries including an early origin for the orders of placental mammals and modern birds, estimates of when

prokaryote A prokaryote (; less commonly spelled procaryote) is a unicellular organism, single-celled organism whose cell (biology), cell lacks a cell nucleus, nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. The word ''prokaryote'' comes from the Ancient Gree ...

s and

eukaryote The eukaryotes ( ) constitute the Domain (biology), domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a membrane-bound cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms ...

s first colonized land and its relevance for the planet, and the

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

relationships of reptiles and

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores we ...

mammals. He has coined the word timetree for a phylogenetic tree scaled to time, co-founded the TimeTree database for exploring the time-scale of the tree of life, and co-edited the book ''Timetree of Life''. Hedges and his team produced a spiral

in 2015 to visualize the relationships over time of 50,000 species, and discovered that diversification and

speciation Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within ...

are both relatively constant through time and among groups. Hedges also has a field program in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

where he has studied the evolution and

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the species distribution, distribution of species and ecosystems in geography, geographic space and through evolutionary history of life, geological time. Organisms and biological community (ecology), communities o ...

amphibian Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

s and reptiles with genetic data and maintained a database of information on these species,

Caribherp Caribherp is an online database containing information on amphibians and reptiles of the Caribbean Islands. It was established in 1999 and serves as a resource for determining the species that occur on specific islands, viewing their distributions, ...

. He discovered many new species in his work and has so far named 135 species of reptiles, amphibians, and butterflies. He also described three of the smallest species of reptiles and amphibians, including the Monte Iberia dwarf frog (''Eleutherodactylus iberia''), Jaragua gecko (''

Sphaerodactylus ariasae ''Sphaerodactylus ariasae'', commonly called the Jaragua sphaero or the Jaragua dwarf gecko, is the smallest species of lizard in the family Sphaerodactylidae. Description ''Sphaerodactylus ariasae'' is the world's smallest known reptile. The ...

''), and the

Barbados threadsnake The Barbados threadsnake (''Tetracheilostoma carlae'') is a species of Leptotyphlopidae, threadsnake. It is the smallest known snake species. This member of the Leptotyphlopidae Family (biology), family is found on the Caribbean islands of Barbad ...

(''Tetracheilostoma carlae''). Twelve articles in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' have described his research.

Conservation

Work by Hedges and his team in Haiti has defined hot spots of biodiversity leading to the establishment of three national parks in Haiti. He also initiated a

captive breeding Captive breeding, also known as captive propagation, is the process of keeping plants or animals in controlled environments, such as wildlife reserves, zoos, Botanical garden, botanic gardens, and other Conservation biology, conservation facilitie ...

program to conserve ten

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

of frog at the

Philadelphia Zoo The Philadelphia Zoo is a zoo located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia on the west bank of the Schuylkill River. It was the first true zoo in the United States; it was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 21, 1859 ...

. Together with Haitian CEO Philippe Bayard, he founded Haiti National Trust, an environmental protection NGO.

Personal life

Hedges is interested in

Renaissance art Renaissance art (1350 – 1620) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurr ...

, which led him to conduct several scientific studies of early artwork, including the development of a method for dating old prints and a study on the historical biogeography of beetles based on the holes they bored in old books.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hedges, S. Blair Living people Evolutionary biologists Pennsylvania State University faculty Temple University faculty American herpetologists George Mason University alumni University of Maryland, College Park alumni Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)