Tim Colston's Research
My general areas of interest are in ecology, evolution
and conservation of amphibians and reptiles.
Survey and Inventory of the Amphibians and Reptiles of
The Wildlife Management areas of Oklahoma:

Since 2006 I have been assisting Dr. Larrie Vitt, Dr. Jan Caldwell and the other
graduate students in the herpetology lab at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of
Natural History with intense herpetological surveys of the Wildlife Management Areas
in Oklahoma. Since Oklahoma lies in the dividing zone between East/West species
in the United States we have a diverse array flora and fauna. The data generated
from these surveys will provide detailed species lists, relative abundance and
ecological data that will be used in future conservation efforts.
Check out the project website here (coming soon)
Does Diet Support Phylogeny? An Analysis of
Phylogeny of all Known Snake Families Using Dietary
Data

Data were collected from the literature diets of 194 species of snakes, including
representatives from all ecological biomes and all 6 continents. Representatives of
all major clades and subclades (families) were assembled. I identified 37 discreet
prey categories varying from fish eggs to large vertebrates. I used Canonical
Correspondence Ordination Analysis to associate the variation in the diet matrix with
the variation in the phylogeny matrix.

Paper and Poster forthcoming
Current Projects
Survey and Inventory of the Small Mammals in the
Sate of Colima, Mexico

From December 28, 2007-January 15, 2008 I assisted Dr. Gary Schnell of the
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Dr. Mike Kennedy of the
University of Memphis, and Dr. Troy Best of Auburn University with their ongoing
survey of small mammals in Colima, Mexico. On this expedition our basecamp was
located at the foot of the Fire Volcano at the Jalisco/Colima border. We took
species abundance and activity data as well as species distribution data.
Past Projects