The success of our ongoing studies of African fishes have also resulted in our involvement in research projects closer to home. These included the examination of the genetic structure of two locally endangered fish the Western banded killifish, and the lake sturgeon, a major ongoing study by one doctoral student of various species of the genus Etheostoma, the snub-nosed darters of the Eastern United States, and a continuing study of the genetics and evolution of a species of mosquitofish, Gambusia hubbsi, on Andros Island in the Bahamas. Each of these studies involves a set of populations which have undergone population size changes or have been recently split into isolated small refugia. They thus continue the theme of the study of "bottlenecked" populations, and allow a continued examination of the validity of population genetics theory and the potential future refinement of that theory.

As my studies of fish have progresses, I have discovered that the methods being used by my laboratory have general use in the examination of problems of the taxonomy of fishes. We have applied our molecular methods to a better understanding of the evolution of the sturgeons (expanding our studies of the lake sturgeon), and have discovered several unusual genetic phenomena occurring which are likely to be the focus of future work in the laboratory. Further, studies of both endangered populations and general interests in fish taxonomy have prompted further studies on the development of methods which can be used to study the molecular information archived in museum specimens and ways of non-destructive sampling of materials from live animals. This has resulted in my appointment as a curator (of Molecular Systematics) within the Zoology Collections of the Museum of Biological Diversity. In this position, I hope to develop procedures which will ensure that genetic information can be obtained from any specimens which will be archived in the future in the museum collections.