Jason Coombs

Picture of Jason Coombs
OEB Ph.D. Candidate
B.S., Lock Haven University, 1998
M.S., Clarion University, 2002
email address

Research Interests

Confluence of study streamI am interested in how individual life-history strategies on an ecological time scale influence population level processes evolutionarily. Currently my research is focused on the long-term monitoring of a naturally reproducing brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) population. The study involves areas of population biology, molecular ecology, and evolutionary ecology to temporally monitor individual traits, reconstruct a population pedigree, and estimate heritability of, and selection for traits involved in differing life history strategies.

Male Brook TroutAdditionally I enjoy developing software programs to facilitate scientific study. One program entitled 'CREATE' is designed to manipulate raw diploid genetic data into correctly formatted input files for over fifty genetic software analysis programs. A second program, 'PEDAGOG', simulates populations while recording individual genotypes and attributes. It allows for input of genetic, demographic, mating strategy, genetic/demographic error, growth model, and heritability and selection parameters. A third program, 'PEDAGREE', assesses pedigree reconstruction congruence, and performs a sibship constraint method that can significantly improve parentage assignment accuracy. Another program, 'SpawnOpt', was specifically designed for the USFWS Maine Atlantic salmon hatchery program for real-time mating optimization designed to maximize genetic variation of crosses.

Publications

Coombs, J.A., Letcher, B.H., and Nislow, K.H. (Submitted). Pedigree accuracies: The costs and benefits of using genetically reconstructed sibships to constrain parentage assignments. Heredity.

Coombs, J.A., Letcher, B.H., and Nislow, K.H. (Submitted). PEDAGOG: Software for simulating eco-evolutionary population dynamics. Molecular Ecology Resources.

Coombs, J.A., Letcher, B.H., and Nislow, K.H. (Submitted). PedAgree: Software to quantify error and assess accuracy and congruence for genetically reconstructed pedigree relationships. Molecular Ecology Resources.

Coombs, J.A., Letcher, B.H., and Nislow, K.H. (2008). CREATE: A software to create input files from diploid genotypic data for 52 genetic software programs. Molecular Ecology Resources. 8(3)(3): 578-580. Abstract available

Letcher B.H., Nislow K.H., Coombs J.A., O'Donnell M.J., and Dubreuil T.L. (2008). Population response to habitat fragmentation in a stream-dwelling brook trout population. PLoS ONE. 2(11)(3): e1139:e1150. Full-text available (PDF)