Cameron J Weadick, PhD (U Toronto)
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Department of Evolutionary Biology
Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology (Tübingen)
cameron.weadick [at] tuebingen.mpg.de
Research
The world is complex and ever-changing. For life to survive and thrive in spite of this variability, organisms must be able to obtain accurate and timely information about their surroundings. My primary research interests center on the evolution and ecology of sensory systems.

I am currently a postdoctoral research position in the Department of Evolutionary Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology (in Tübingen, Germany), where I am studying aspects of pheromone signaling and reception in Pristionchus nematodes under the supervision of Dr Ralf Sommer. My PhD research focused on visual pigments, the light-sensitive proteins found in rod and cone photoreceptor cells, and was carried out under the supervision of Dr Belinda Chang and Dr Helen Rodd.
Curriculum vitae
CV [pdf]
Last updated: Feb 19th 2012
Publications
Google Scholar Listing [link]
  1. Weadick CJ & Chang BSW. 2012.
    Complex patterns of divergence among green-sensitive (RH2a) African cichlid opsins revealed by clade model analyses.
        BMC Evolutionary Biology 12:206. [link] [PDF]
        BioMed Central 'Highly Accessed' Distinction.
  2. Weadick CJ, Loew ER, Rodd FH & Chang BSW. 2012.
    Visual pigment molecular evolution in the Trinidadian pike cichlid (Crenicichla frenata): a less colorful world for Neotropical cichlids?
        Molecular Biology and Evolution 29:3045-3060. [link]
  3. Weadick CJ & Chang BSW. 2012.
    An improved likelihood ratio test for detecting site-specific functional divergence among clades of protein-coding genes.
        Molecular Biology and Evolution 29:1297-1300. [link]
        Implemented in Ziheng Yang's PAML software package (version 4.6).
           codeml control file settings: model = 0, NSsites = 22
  4. De Serrano AR, Weadick CJ, Price AC & Rodd FH. 2012.
    Seeing orange: prawns tap into a pre-existing sensory bias of the Trinidadian guppy.
        Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279:3321-3328. [link]
        Coverage: The Scientist, Nature News Blog, Quirks & Quarks, forskning.no.
  5. Chang BSW, Du J, Weadick CJ, Müller J, Bickelmann C, Yu DD & Morrow JM. 2012.
    The future of codon models in studies of molecular function: Ancestral reconstruction, and clade models of functional divergence.
        Codon Evolution: Mechanisms and Models. Ed: Cannarozii GM & Schneider A
        Oxford University Press. [link]
  6. Fraser BA, Weadick CJ, Janowitz I, Rodd FH & Hughes KA. 2011.
    Sequencing and characterization of the guppy (Poecilia reticulata) transcriptome.
        BMC Genomics 12:202. [link] [PDF]
        BioMed Central 'Highly Accessed' Distinction.
  7. Wong L, Weadick CJ, Kuo C, Chang BSW & Tropepe V. 2010.
    Duplicate dmbx1 genes regulate progenitor cell cycle and differentiation during zebrafish midbrain and retinal development.
        BMC Developmental Biology 10:100. [link] [PDF]
  8. Weadick CJ & Chang BSW. 2009.
    Molecular evolution of the βγ lens crystallin superfamily: evidence for a retained ancestral function in γN crystallins?
        Molecular Biology and Evolution 26:1127-1142. [link] [PDF]
  9. Price AC, Weadick CJ, Shim J, and Rodd FH. 2008.
    Pigments, patterns, and fish behavior.
        Zebrafish 5:297-307. [link] [PDF]
  10. Hult EF, Weadick CJ, Chang BSW & Tobe SS. 2008.
    Reconstruction of ancestral FGLamide-type insect allatostatins: a novel approach to the study of allatostatin function and evolution.
        Journal of Insect Physiology 54:959-968. [link] [PDF]
  11. Weadick CJ & Chang BSW. 2007.
    Long-wavelength sensitive visual pigments of the guppy (Poecilia reticulata): six opsins expressed in a single individual.
        BMC Evolutionary Biology 7(Suppl 1):S11. [link] [PDF]
  12. Fu J, Weadick CJ & Bi K. 2007.
    A phylogeny of the high-elevation Tibetan megophryid frogs and evidence for the multiple origins of reversed sexual size dimorphism.
        Journal of Zoology 273:315-325. [link] [PDF]
  13. Fu J, Weadick CJ, Zeng X, Wang Y, Liu Z, Zheng Y, Li C & Ying H. 2005.
    Phylogeographic analysis of the Bufo gargarizans species complex: A revisit.
        Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37:202-213. [link] [PDF]
Page last updated: Nov 22nd 2012