Michael E. Hellberg

Associate ProfessorMichael Hellberg
Associate Chair, Graduate Studies
SEE Division

PhD: University of California, Davis, 1993

Phone: 225-578-1757
Lab Phone: 225-578-9114
Office: 107/328 Life Sciences Building
Lab: 330/334 Life Sciences Building
E-mail: mhellbe@lsu.edu 

Hellberg Lab 

Area of Interest

The study of speciation draws on nearly all facets of evolutionary research, from patterns revealed by paleontology and biogeography to genetic change at the population and molecular level. In my research, I apply a variety of genetic and genomic approaches to the study of marine invertebrates, whose life histories, mating strategies, and geographical distributions offer novel opportunities for understanding speciation.

Current projects in my lab use sequences for genes encoding rapidly evolving sperm and egg proteins to explore speciation mechanisms in marine snails and RADseq to infer population history and genes involved with ecological speciationin reef corals. Additional projects look at geographical and habitat changes to microbial symbionts associated with a corals and combine genomic and paleobiological data to ask how the protein matrix of the shells of bivalve mollusks have responded to changes in ocean acidity across geography and through time.

Selected Publications

Prada, C. and M. E. Hellberg. 2021. Speciation-by-depth on coral reefs: sympatric divergence with gene flow or cryptic transient isolation? Journal of Evolutionary Biology 34: 128-137.

Reigel, A. M., S. M. Owens and M. E. Hellberg. 2020. Reducing host DNA contamination in 16S rRNA surveys of anthozoan microbiomes using PNA clamps. Coral Reefs 39: 1817-1827.

Posbic Leydet, K., C. G. B. Grupstra, R. Coma, M. Ribes, M. E. Hellberg. 2018. Host targeted RAD Seq reveals genetic changes in the coral Oculina patagonica associated with range expansion along the Spanish Mediterranean coast Molecular Ecology 27: 2529-2543.

Hellberg, M.E., C. Prada, M. H. Tan, Z. H. Forsman and I. B. Baums. 2016. Getting a grip at the edge: recolonization and introgression in eastern Pacific Porites corals. J. Biogeography 43: 2147-2159.

Paz-García, D. A., M. E. Hellberg, F. J. García-de-León and E. F. Balart. 2015. Switch between morphospecies of Pocillopora corals. The American Naturalist 186: 434-440.

Prada, C. and M. E. Hellberg. 2014. Strong natural selection on juveniles maintains a narrow adult hybrid zone in a broadcast spawner. The American Naturalist 184: 702-713.

Dennis, A. B., S. H. Loomis, and M. E. Hellberg. 2014. Latitudinal variation of freeze tolerance in intertidal marine snails of the genus Melampus (Gastropoda: Ellobiidae). Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 87: 517-526.

DeBiasse, M. B., B. J. Nelson, and M. E. Hellberg. 2014. Evaluating summary statistics used to test for incomplete lineage sorting: mito-nuclear discordance in the reef sponge Callyspongia vaginalis. Molecular Ecology 23: 225-238.

Leydet, K. P. and M. E. Hellberg. 2015. The invasive coral Oculina patagonica has not been recently introduced to the Mediterranean from the western Atlantic. BMC Evolutionary Biology 15: 79.

Prada, C. and M. E. Hellberg. 2014. Strong natural selection on juveniles maintains a narrow adult hybrid zone in a broadcast spawner. The American Naturalist 184: 702-713.

Prada, C., M. B. DeBiasse, J. E. Neigel, B. Yednock, J. L. Stake, Z. H. Forsman, I. B. Baums and M. E. Hellberg. 2014. Genetic species delineation among branching Caribbean Porites corals. Coral Reefs 33: 1019-1030.

DeBiasse, M. B., B. J. Nelson, and M. E. Hellberg. 2014. Evaluating summary statistics used to test for incomplete lineage sorting: mito-nuclear discordance in the reef sponge Callyspongia vaginalis. Molecular Ecology 23: 225-238.

Boulay, J. N., M. E. Hellberg, J. Cortés, and I. B. Baums. 2014. Unrecognized coral species diversity masks differences in functional ecology. Proc. Roy. Soc. B 281: 20131580.

Prada, C. and M. E. Hellberg.  2013.  Long pre-reproductive selection and divergence by depth in a Caribbean candelabrum coral.  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 110: 3961-3966.

Baums, I. B., J. N. Boulay, N. R. Polato, and M. E. Hellberg.  2012.  No gene flow across the Eastern Pacific Barrier in the reef-building coral Porites lobata.  Molecular Ecology 21: 5418-5433.

Hellberg, M.E., A. B. Dennis, P. Arbour-Reily, J. E. Aagaard, and W. J. Swanson. 2012. The Tegula tango: a co-evolutionary dance of interacting, positively-selected sperm and egg proteins. Evolution 66:  1681-1694.