A group of young women in lab coats on McKeldin Mall

Michael Braun
Contact Info
Phone: 301.238.1113
Fax: 301.238.3059
Braun Lab Website
Michael Braun
Adjunct Professor
Smithsonian Laboratory of Molecular Systematics

Graduate Program Affiliation

  • BISI-Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, & Systematics (BEES)

Research Interests

Our research focuses on the use of molecular genetic data to enhance our understanding of the origin and maintenance of biological diversity. We often use birds as a model system, but have worked extensively on other organisms. Our current research falls in four areas:

  • Hybrid zones and speciation
  • Molecular phylogenetics
  • Genetic structure and diversity of natural populations
  • Neotropical biogeography

See lab website for further details.

Education

Ph.D., Louisiana State University Medical Center, 1983.
Molecular genetic approaches to evolutionary biology; speciation; sexual selection; phylogenetics; hybrid zones.

All Publications

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Latest Publications via PubMed

Long KM,Rivera-Colón AG,Bennett KFP,Catchen JM,Braun MJ,Brawn JD
Ongoing introgression of a secondary sexual plumage trait in a stable avian hybrid zone.
Evolution. 2024 Sep 3;78(9):1539-1553. doi: 10.1093/evolut/qpae076. Epub
Vernasco BJ,Long KM,Braun MJ,Brawn JD
Genetic and telomeric variability: Insights from a tropical avian hybrid zone.
Mol Ecol. 2024 Sep;33(18):e17491. doi: 10.1111/mec.17491. Epub 2024 Aug 27
Rasband SA,Bolton PE,Fang Q,Johnson PLF,Braun MJ
Evolution of the Growth Hormone Gene Duplication in Passerine Birds.
Genome Biol Evol. 2023 Mar 3;15(3):. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evad033. Epub
DeRaad DA,Applewhite EE,Tsai WLE,Terrill RS,Kingston SE,Braun MJ,McCormack JE
Hybrid zone or hybrid lineage: a genomic reevaluation of Sibley's classic species conundrum in Pipilo towhees.
Evolution. 2023 Mar 1;77(3):852-869. doi: 10.1093/evolut/qpac068. Epub
Braun MJ,Rauneker T,Dreyhaupt J,Hoffmann TK,Luthardt RG,Schmitz B,Dammann F,Beer M
Dental and Maxillofacial Cone Beam CT-High Number of Incidental Findings and Their Impact on Follow-Up and Therapy Management.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2022 Apr 20;12(5):. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics12051036. Epub 2022 Apr 20
White ND,Batz ZA,Braun EL,Braun MJ,Carleton KL,Kimball RT,Swaroop A
A novel exome probe set captures phototransduction genes across birds (Aves) enabling efficient analysis of vision evolution.
Mol Ecol Resour. 2022 Feb;22(2):587-601. doi: 10.1111/1755-0998.13496. Epub 2021 Oct 15
Bennett KFP,Lim HC,Braun MJ
Sexual Selection and Introgression in Avian Hybrid Zones: Spotlight on Manacus.
Integr Comp Biol. 2021 Oct 14;61(4):1291-1309. doi: 10.1093/icb/icab135. Epub
Feng S,Stiller J,Deng Y,Armstrong J,Fang Q,Reeve AH,Xie D,Chen G,Guo C,Faircloth BC,Petersen B,Wang Z,Zhou Q,Diekhans M,Chen W,Andreu-Sánchez S,Margaryan A,Howard JT,Parent C,Pacheco G,Sinding MS,Puetz L,Cavill E,Ribeiro ÂM,Eckhart L,Fjeldså J,Hosner PA,Brumfield RT,Christidis L,Bertelsen MF,Sicheritz-Ponten T,Tietze DT,Robertson BC,Song G,Borgia G,Claramunt S,Lovette IJ,Cowen SJ,Njoroge P,Dumbacher JP,Ryder OA,Fuchs J,Bunce M,Burt DW,Cracraft J,Meng G,Hackett SJ,Ryan PG,Jønsson KA,Jamieson IG,da Fonseca RR,Braun EL,Houde P,Mirarab S,Suh A,Hansson B,Ponnikas S,Sigeman H,Stervander M,Frandsen PB,van der Zwan H,van der Sluis R,Visser C,Balakrishnan CN,Clark AG,Fitzpatrick JW,Bowman R,Chen N,Cloutier A,Sackton TB,Edwards SV,Foote DJ,Shakya SB,Sheldon FH,Vignal A,Soares AER,Shapiro B,González-Solís J,Ferrer-Obiol J,Rozas J,Riutort M,Tigano A,Friesen V,Dalén L,Urrutia AO,Székely T,Liu Y,Campana MG,Corvelo A,Fleischer RC,Rutherford KM,Gemmell NJ,Dussex N,Mouritsen H,Thiele N,Delmore K,Liedvogel M,Franke A,Hoeppner MP,Krone O,Fudickar AM,Milá B,Ketterson ED,Fidler AE,Friis G,Parody-Merino ÁM,Battley PF,Cox MP,Lima NCB,Prosdocimi F,Parchman TL,Schlinger BA,Loiselle BA,Blake JG,Lim HC,Day LB,Fuxjager MJ,Baldwin MW,Braun MJ,Wirthlin M,Dikow RB,Ryder TB,Camenisch G,Keller LF,DaCosta JM,Hauber ME,Louder MIM,Witt CC,McGuire JA,Mudge J,Megna LC,Carling MD,Wang B,Taylor SA,Del-Rio G,Aleixo A,Vasconcelos ATR,Mello CV,Weir JT,Haussler D,Li Q,Yang H,Wang J,Lei F,Rahbek C,Gilbert MTP,Graves GR,Jarvis ED,Paten B,Zhang G
Author Correction: Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics.
Nature. 2021 Apr;592(7856):E24. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03473-8. Epub
Feng S,Stiller J,Deng Y,Armstrong J,Fang Q,Reeve AH,Xie D,Chen G,Guo C,Faircloth BC,Petersen B,Wang Z,Zhou Q,Diekhans M,Chen W,Andreu-Sánchez S,Margaryan A,Howard JT,Parent C,Pacheco G,Sinding MS,Puetz L,Cavill E,Ribeiro ÂM,Eckhart L,Fjeldså J,Hosner PA,Brumfield RT,Christidis L,Bertelsen MF,Sicheritz-Ponten T,Tietze DT,Robertson BC,Song G,Borgia G,Claramunt S,Lovette IJ,Cowen SJ,Njoroge P,Dumbacher JP,Ryder OA,Fuchs J,Bunce M,Burt DW,Cracraft J,Meng G,Hackett SJ,Ryan PG,Jønsson KA,Jamieson IG,da Fonseca RR,Braun EL,Houde P,Mirarab S,Suh A,Hansson B,Ponnikas S,Sigeman H,Stervander M,Frandsen PB,van der Zwan H,van der Sluis R,Visser C,Balakrishnan CN,Clark AG,Fitzpatrick JW,Bowman R,Chen N,Cloutier A,Sackton TB,Edwards SV,Foote DJ,Shakya SB,Sheldon FH,Vignal A,Soares AER,Shapiro B,González-Solís J,Ferrer-Obiol J,Rozas J,Riutort M,Tigano A,Friesen V,Dalén L,Urrutia AO,Székely T,Liu Y,Campana MG,Corvelo A,Fleischer RC,Rutherford KM,Gemmell NJ,Dussex N,Mouritsen H,Thiele N,Delmore K,Liedvogel M,Franke A,Hoeppner MP,Krone O,Fudickar AM,Milá B,Ketterson ED,Fidler AE,Friis G,Parody-Merino ÁM,Battley PF,Cox MP,Lima NCB,Prosdocimi F,Parchman TL,Schlinger BA,Loiselle BA,Blake JG,Lim HC,Day LB,Fuxjager MJ,Baldwin MW,Braun MJ,Wirthlin M,Dikow RB,Ryder TB,Camenisch G,Keller LF,DaCosta JM,Hauber ME,Louder MIM,Witt CC,McGuire JA,Mudge J,Megna LC,Carling MD,Wang B,Taylor SA,Del-Rio G,Aleixo A,Vasconcelos ATR,Mello CV,Weir JT,Haussler D,Li Q,Yang H,Wang J,Lei F,Rahbek C,Gilbert MTP,Graves GR,Jarvis ED,Paten B,Zhang G
Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics.
Nature. 2020 Nov;587(7833):252-257. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2873-9. Epub 2020 Nov 11
Braun MJ,Wilkinson GS,Cade BS
Comment on "Female toads engaging in adaptive hybridization prefer high-quality heterospecifics as mates".
Science. 2020 Oct 9;370(6513):. pii: eabd3905. doi: 10.1126/science.abd3905. Epub
Lim HC,Shakya SB,Harvey MG,Moyle RG,Fleischer RC,Braun MJ,Sheldon FH
Opening the door to greater phylogeographic inference in Southeast Asia: Comparative genomic study of five codistributed rainforest bird species using target capture and historical DNA.
Ecol Evol. 2020 Apr;10(7):3222-3247. doi: 10.1002/ece3.5964. Epub 2020 Mar 6
White ND,Braun MJ
Extracting phylogenetic signal from phylogenomic data: Higher-level relationships of the nightbirds (Strisores).
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2019 Dec;141:106611. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2019.106611. Epub 2019 Sep 11
Oliveros CH,Field DJ,Ksepka DT,Barker FK,Aleixo A,Andersen MJ,Alström P,Benz BW,Braun EL,Braun MJ,Bravo GA,Brumfield RT,Chesser RT,Claramunt S,Cracraft J,Cuervo AM,Derryberry EP,Glenn TC,Harvey MG,Hosner PA,Joseph L,Kimball RT,Mack AL,Miskelly CM,Peterson AT,Robbins MB,Sheldon FH,Silveira LF,Smith BT,White ND,Moyle RG,Faircloth BC
Earth history and the passerine superradiation.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Apr 16;116(16):7916-7925. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1813206116. Epub 2019 Apr 1
Tamashiro RA,White ND,Braun MJ,Faircloth BC,Braun EL,Kimball RT
What are the roles of taxon sampling and model fit in tests of cyto-nuclear discordance using avian mitogenomic data?
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2019 Jan;130:132-142. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2018.10.008. Epub 2018 Oct 12
Sánchez-Mercado A,Rodríguez-Clark KM,Miranda J,Ferrer-Paris JR,Coyle B,Toro S,Cardozo-Urdaneta A,Braun MJ
How to deal with ground truthing affected by human-induced habitat change?: Identifying high-quality habitats for the Critically Endangered Red Siskin.
Ecol Evol. 2018 Jan;8(2):841-851. doi: 10.1002/ece3.3628. Epub 2017 Dec 10

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