Yuxuan Zhao

"Black Boxes and Holes", is how I picture the evolution of organisms. Picture black boxes placed within a larger black box (in a Matryoshka doll style) with lights shining through the holes to the inside of the boxes.
Evolutionary biologists exploit various means/proxies to try to decipher the complex evolution history (Black Boxes) based on observational and theoretical evidence. Such inferences based on evidence can sometimes be biased or circumstantial (holes on the Black Boxes), and this is exactly why evolutionary biology is still developing fast, using different study systems of animals.
One such animal system is the Australian Water Beetles Underground and Aboveground Fauna, representing the most diverse underground beetle fauna in the world. My research is on the evolution history of these beetles, using various means (morphology/phylogenetics/behaviours/chemistry) to investigate the behavioural ecology of these holometabolous animals.