Hybridization, speciation, symbiosis & evolutionary genomics

ABOUT THE LAB

The Baiz Lab is in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), in Buffalo, New York.  Our work is focused on understanding the process of speciation. Current projects involve hybridization, the microbiome, and coloration using passerine birds as models.

NEWS

New preprint:
Hidden palette: Culturing the sauropsid gut microbiome reveals a high prevalence and diversity of bacteria that undergo carotenoid biosynthesis. Read the paper here
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Congratulations to Victoria Gates and Kartikey Sharma for winning the UB BIO undergraduate awards for Best Researcher and Most Well-Rounded Student awards for the Fall 2025 semester! Victoria and Kartikey are involved in research on the avian microbiome.

New publications:
Experimental evidence of a consistent commensal relationship between avian hosts and feather mites of differing host specificities, lead by Alix Matthews. Read the paper here

Life-history stage-dependent effects of food supplementation on gut microbiome diversity in Sialia sialis (Eastern Bluebird), co-lead by Marcella. Read the paper here​

January 2026
Congratulations to Alican for winning the "Fan Favorite" poster at the UB BIO research symposium! 
Alican is studying sex chromosome evolution and hybridization between Northern Parula x Tropical Parula.

Summer 2025
Alix was awarded a Kessel Fellowship by the American Ornithological Society! 
The fellowship will support her research on the possible role of the avian microbiome on mediating host specificity and prevalence of feather mites.

Picture
Alix Matthews, Emily Donahue and Máxima Gómez-Palmer searching for Black-and-white Warblers, one of Alix's study species.

Spring 2025
Congratulations to Kartikey for his 1st place presentation on his research at the STEM for Everyone symposium at UB!

March 2024
Tina won the 1st place poster award at the
UB Biological Sciences Research Symposium!

Spring 2023
Making a splash in the field!
This field season, I teamed up with the Toews lab and PhD candidate Lan-Nhi Phung to investigate functional variation in gut microbiomes of Common Yellowthroats and hybrid Vermivora warblers, and to carry out a song playback experiment with Nashville warblers.

Picture
Field assistant, Mads Moore

November 2022
Our warbler microbiome paper is published in Molecular Ecology
Press release
​Publication

March 2022
New preprint!
Gut microbiome composition better reflects host phylogeny than diet in breeding wood-warblers.
​Read it here.

June 2021
New publication!
Our new paper is out in The Scientific Naturalist (of the journal Ecology), entitled "Rare hybrid solves 'genetic problem' of linked plumage traits". Read more here.

May 2021
The field season is in full swing!
This year, we are focusing on several projects involving the gut microbiome, diet, and hybridization. Some of this work includes exciting new collaborations with Dr. Allison Cornell & ​Dr. Julian Avery. 
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Read about our work on hybridization and plumage trait inheritance in Vermivora warblers on the Feather Friday blog!

I am currently seeking an REU student
​interested in ecology & evolution

 Possible project topics involve songbird gut microbiomes, plumage coloration, and hybridization. No previous research experience is required. Opportunities include field and lab work (although remote participation is an option) and professional development activities. This is an NSF-funded, full-time, 10-week program that will run in June-August. The student will be paid $6000 + additional funds for supplies, travel, housing, and meals. You must be a US citizen, sophomores and juniors preferred.