R. Graham Reynolds, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology

Contact Information

    Office Hours

    • Wednesday 1:15 pm - 2:15 pm
    • Note: And by appointment

    Biography

    Dr. Reynolds’ research program uses genetic and natural history data to study the evolution, ecology, and conservation of reptiles and amphibians in the southeastern United States, the Caribbean, and around the world. He is especially interested in pairing modern genetic and statistical methods with good old-fashioned natural history and field research, with a special focus on boid snakes and anolis lizards in the West Indies. His fieldwork carries him to swamps and mountaintops around the southeast, as well as all over the Caribbean- from the Bahamas to Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Central America, and beyond. Dr. Reynolds has co-authored several books and is the co-discoverer of the Silver Boa, a new species of snake from a remote corner of the Bahamian Archipelago.

    Dr. Reynolds earned a B.A. from Duke University, where he studied poison dart frog behavior in Panama. He then earned a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville studying population genetics of reptiles in the Turks and Caicos Islands. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and then at Harvard University, where he held appointments in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Herpetology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology.

    Education

    • Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee Knoxville
    • B.A. in Biology, Duke University

    Courses Taught

    • BIOL 135 Concepts of Ecology and Evolution
    • BIOL 173 The Biology of Star Wars
    • BIOL 210 Principles of Zoology
    • BIOL 350 Vertebrate Field Zoology
    • BIOL 480 Senior Seminar

    Books

    • Reynolds, R.G. Genetics of Small Populations: Inbreeding Depression and Animal Conservation. Under Contract.
    • Reynolds, R.G., R.W. Henderson (Eds). 2026. Boas of the World. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. 
    • Reynolds, R.G., R.W. Henderson, L.M. Díaz, T.R. Rodriguez-Cabrera, and A.R. Puente-Rolón. 2023. Boas of the West Indies: Evolution, Natural History, and Conservation. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. 288 pgs.
    • Niemiller, M.L. R.G. Reynolds, and B.T. Miller (Eds.). 2013. The Reptiles of Tennessee. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN. 366 pgs.
    •  Niemiller, M.L. and R.G. Reynolds (Eds.). 2011. The Amphibians of Tennessee. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN. 369 pgs.

    Selected Publications

    • Reynolds, R.G., and S.D. Buckner. 2022. Characterization of the bird diversity of Conception Island National Park, The Bahamas. Journal of Caribbean Ornithology 36: 17–25.  
    • Geneva, A.J., S. Park, D. Bock, P. de Mello, F. Sarigol, M. Tollis, C. Donihue, R.G. Reynolds, N. Feiner, A.M. Rasys, J.D. Lauderdale, C.R. Infante, J.J. Kolbe, D. Schluter, D.B. Menke, and J.B. Losos. 2022. Chromosome-scale genome assembly of the brown anole (Anolis sagrei), an emerging model species. Communications Biology 5:1126.
    • Reynolds, R.G., A.R. Puente-Rolon, and A.J. Geneva. 2022. Natural history and morphometrics of the newly discovered and critically endangered Silver Boa (Chilabothrus argentum; Squamata; Boidae). Caribbean Naturalist 88: 1–20.
    • Vanerelli, A., A.H. Miller, L.C. Comşa, A.J. Geneva, and R.G. Reynolds. 2022. Mitochondrial genome of the critically endangered Silver Boa (Chilabothrus argentum; Squamata; Boidae). Mitochondrial DNA Part B 7: 1180–1182.
    •  Reynolds, R.G., A.H. Miller, S.A. Pasachnik, C.R. Knapp, M.E. Welch, G. Colosimo, G.P. Gerber, B. Drawert, and J.B. Iverson. 2022. Phylogenomics and historical biogeography of West Indian rock iguanas (genus Cyclura). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 174: 107548.
    • Maayan, I., R.G. Reynolds, R.M. Goodman, P.M. Hime, R. Bickel, E.A. Luck, and J.B. Losos. 2022. Fixation and preservation contribute to distortion in vertebrate museum specimens: a ten-year study with the lizard Anolis sagrei. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 136: 443–454.
    • Scherrer, R., C.M. Donihue, R.G. Reynolds, J.B. Losos, and A.J. Geneva. 2022. Dewlap color variation in Anolis sagrei is maintained among habitats within islands of the West Indies. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 35: 680–692.
    • Landestoy T., M.A., R.G. Reynolds, and R.W. Henderson. 2021. A small new arboreal species of West Indian Boa (Boidae; Chilabothrus) from southern Hispaniola. Breviora 571: 1–20.

    Honorifics

    • Fellow of the Explorers Club
    • National Geographic Explorer
    • Associate, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
    • Associate Editor, Journal of Herpetology
    • Associate Editor, Caribbean Herpetology

    Positions Held

    • Harvard University, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, 2014-2016
    • University of Massachusetts Boston, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Biology, 2011-2013

    Reynolds Lab Website

    https://www.caribbeanboas.org