Gender	Male
E-mail	max.levitan@mssm.edu

Max Levitan, Ph.D.
Professor, Center For Anatomy And Functional Morphology
Professor, Genetics And Genomic Sciences
E-mail: max.levitan@mssm.edu
Tel: (212) 241-4576, (212) 241-7268
Fax: (212) 824-9485


Mailing Address
One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1007, New York, NY 10029
Location
Annenberg Building, Rooms 12-90 and 18-09

Research in this laboratory is concerned with problems in population genetics. For the most part this has involved an ongoing  long-term investigation of geographic variation in the chromosomal polymorphism of the eastern woods fly, Drosophila robusta. A primary problem has ben findings of linkage disequilibrium among the gene arrangements on the two largest chromosomes of the species and the variable expressions of this phenomenon in different parts of the range of the species.
Our widespread collections of the species have recently forced the emphasis of the laboratory to investigate the genetic effects of the climate changes commonly referred to as Aglobal warming.@ We found, first in New York and Philadelphia, PA, and subsequently also in New Jersey, Allentown, PA, and Olivette, a suburb of St. Louis, MO, several chromosome forms that had been relatively rare in those places (because they tended to be more frequent at lower latitudes than at higher ones) had attained frequencies more typical of populations from  Alabama and Georgia.   The mystery has deepened as we have been finding that even though such genetic changes were occurring in many localities, they affected many different chromosome forms, not just the ones in the aforementioned original findings.  A few localities continued to no significant changes, leading to the puzzling question how they differed from those that did.

Etges WJ, Levitan M, Arbuckle KL. Long-term frequency shifts in the chromosomal polymorphisms of Drosophila robusta in the Great Smoky Mountains. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 2006; 88: 131-141.

Etges WJ, Levitan M. Widespread historical and localized changes in the chromosomal polymorphisms of Drosophila robusta. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2005; 5: 4.

Levitan M, Etges WJ. Paleoclimatic variation, adaptation, and biogeographic patterns of inversion polymorphisms in natural populations of Drosophila robusta. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 2004; 51: 395-411.

Levitan M. Climatic factors and increased frequencies of . Evolutionary Ecology Research 2003; 5: 597-604.

Levitan M. Studies of linkage in populations. XIV. Historical changes in frequencies of gene arrangements and arrangement combinations in natural populations of Drosophila robusta. Evolution 2001; 55: 2359-2362.

Levitan M, Etges WJ. Studies of linkage in populations. XIII. A unique cause of linkage disequilibrium in natural populations of Drosophila robusta. Heredity 1998 Jun; 80(pt 6): 660-7.

Levitan M. Suppressor genes with gender differences in activity in natural populations of Drosophila robusta: another approach to wild-type. Genet Res 1997 Apr; 69(2): 81-8.

Levitan M, Etges WJ. Convergent linkage disequilibrium in disparate populations of Drosophila robusta. In: Levine L, editor. Genetics of Natural Populations: The Continuing Importance of Theodosius Dobzhansky. New York, Columbia U Press; 1995. pp105-119.