Associate Professor
Associate Professor
Dr. Ian Wang is Associate Professor of Quantitative Landscape Ecology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and Affiliated Faculty in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. His research focuses on landscape genomics and evolutionary biology in a variety of systems in California and abroad. He is the recipient of the Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator's Award from the American Society of Naturalists (2013), an NSF Career Award (2019), and the UC Berkeley Faculty Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring (2023), and he was named a Hellman Foundation Fellow in 2016.
Ph.D. Population Biology, UC Davis, 2010
B.A. Biology, Cornell University, 2004
landscape genetics, ecological and conservation genomics, adaptive radiation
Ian Wang’s research explores how environmental variation drives genetic, phenotypic, and ecological diversity across space and time. Combining landscape genomics, remote sensing, and morphological evolution, his lab investigates the mechanisms that generate biodiversity and shape species’ responses to environmental change. Recent work has revealed how genomic architecture influences adaptive potential, how seasonal asynchrony and ecological divergence act as hidden barriers to gene flow, and how hybridization and transgressive evolution contribute to adaptive radiation. His group also develops widely used tools for spatial genomic analysis and leads applied conservation genomics efforts, including work with the California Conservation Genomics Project.
For a full list of publications see: https://nature.berkeley.edu/wanglab/publications/
Bishop A.P., Terasaki Hart D.E., and Wang I.J. (2025) Optimizing sampling design for landscape genomics. Molecular Ecology Resources, 25: e14052. doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.14052
Terasaki Hart D.E. and Wang I.J. (2024) Genomic architecture controls multivariate adaptation to climate change. Global Change Biology, 30: e17179.
Medina I., Dong C., Marquez R., Perez D., Wang I.J., and Stuart-Fox D. (2024) Anti-predator defenses are linked with high levels of genetic differentiation in frogs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291: 20232292.
Wogan G.O.U., Yuan M.L., Mahler D.L., and Wang I.J. (2023) Hybridization and transgressive evolution generate diversity in an adaptive radiation of Anolis lizards. Systematic Biology, 72: 874-884.
Westeen E.P., Martinez-Fonseca J.G., Chen H., and Wang I.J. (2023) Phenotypic diversity facilitates niche partitioning in a sky island assemblage of spiny lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 140: 589-605.
Bishop A.P., Chambers E.A., and Wang I.J. (2023) Generating continuous maps of genetic diversity using moving windows. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 14: 1175-1181. doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.14090
Yuan M.L., Westeen E.P., Wogan G.O.U., and Wang I.J. (2022) Female dewlap ornaments are evolutionarily labile and associated with increased diversification rates in Anolis lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 289: 20221871.
Shaffer H.B., Toffelmier E., Corbett-Detig R.B., Escalona M., Erickson B., Fiedler P., Gold M., Harrigan R.J., Hodges S., Luckau T., Miller C., Oliveira D.R., Shaffer K.E., Shapiro B., Sork V.L., and Wang I.J. (2022) Landscape genomics to enable conservation actions: the California Conservation Genomics Project. Journal of Heredity, 113: 577-588. [Editor's Choice]
Terasaki Hart D.E., Bishop A.P., and Wang I.J. (2021) Geonomics: forward-time, spatially explicit, and arbitrarily complex landscape genomic simulations. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38: 4634-4646.
Medina R., Wogan G.O.U., Bi K., Termignoni-García F., Bernal M.H., Jaramillo-Correa J.P., Wang I.J., and Vázquez-Domínguez E. (2021) Phenotypic and genomic diversification with isolation by environment along elevational gradients in a neotropical treefrog. Molecular Ecology, 30: 4062-4076.
Wogan G.O.U., Yuan M.L., Mahler D.L., and Wang I.J. (2020) Genome-wide epigenetic isolation by environment in a widespread Anolis lizard. Molecular Ecology, 29: 40-55.
Wang I.J. (2020) Topographic path analysis for modeling dispersal and functional connectivity: calculating topographic distances using the topoDistance R package. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 11: 265-272.
Yuan M.L., Jung C., Wake M.H., and Wang I.J. (2020) Habitat use, interspecific competition, and phylogenetic history shape the evolution of claw and toepad morphology in Lesser Antillean anoles. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 129:630-643.
Yuan M.L., Wake M.H., and Wang I.J. (2019) Phenotypic integration between claw and toepad traits promotes microhabitat specialization in the Anolis adaptive radiation. Evolution, 73: 231-244.
Gray L.N., Barley A.J., Poe S., Thomson R.C., Nieto-Montes de Oca A., and Wang I.J. (2019) Phylogeography of a widespread lizard complex reflects patterns of both geographic and ecological isolation. Molecular Ecology, 28: 644-657.
Wang I.J. and Shaffer H.B. (2017) Population genetic and field-ecological analyses return similar estimates of dispersal over space and time in an endangered amphibian. Evolutionary Applications, 10: 630-639.
Lourenco A., Alvarez D., Wang I.J., and Velo-Anton G. (2017) Trapped within the city: Integrating demography, time since isolation and population-specific traits to assess the genetic effects of urbanization. Molecular Ecology, 26: 1498-1514.
Wang I.J. and Bradburd G.S. (2014) Isolation by environment. Molecular Ecology, 23: 5649-5662.
Wang I.J. (2013) Examining the full effects of landscape heterogeneity on spatial genetic variation: a multiple matrix regression approach for quantifying geographic and ecological isolation. Evolution, 67: 3403-3411.
Wang I.J., Glor R.E., and Losos J.B. (2013) Quantifying the roles of ecology and geography in spatial genetic divergence. Ecology Letters, 16: 175-182.
Faculty Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring, UC Berkeley (2023)
CAREER Award, National Science Foundation (2019)
Hellman Fellow, Hellman Foundation (2016)
Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator's Award, American Society of Naturalists (2013)
ESPM 137 – Landscape Ecology
ESPM 154 - Landscape Genetics
ESPM 244 – Spatial Ecology
ESPM 290/IB 291 – Graduate Seminar in Adaptive Radiation
ESPM C192 - Molecular Approaches to Environmental Problem Solving
ESPM 290 - Games and Scientific Thinking: Opportunities for Education and Outreach
Contact details
Ian Wang
UC Berkeley
130 Mulford Hall #3114
Berkeley, CA 94720