Thomas B. Smith

Acting Dir & Prof, Institute of the Environment; Director Center for Tropical Research

Department: Institute of the Environment

La Kretz Hall, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Campus mailcode: 149605
tbsmith@ucla.edu
Personal Website

Research Interests

Dr. Smith has over 20 years of experience working in the rainforests of Africa, Australia, Latin America, and Hawaii, and has published more than 100 articles. As founder and Director of the Center for Tropical Research, Dr. Smith oversees a host of research projects and directs the research of a growing number of graduate students and postdoctoral scientists on projects based in tropical countries around the world. A central focus of his research is investigating how speciation occurs in tropical rainforests.

Combining molecular genetics and field biology, Dr. Smith identified a new theory of how speciation occurs in rainforests. In a series of studies published in the journals Science, Nature,and the Proceedings of the National Academy, he has shown that for a wide range of taxa in rainforests worldwide, the processes of diversification and speciation take place not only within “biodiversity hotspots” but also along environmental gradients or ecotones representing the transition from one habitat to another. The implications of this discovery are far-reaching. With climate change threatening large-scale shifts in species distributions and the habitats on which they depend, the hotspots of today may not be the hotspots of tomorrow.  The results of Dr. Smith’s research point to new and more effective ways of prioritizing regions for conservation.