South Australian Museum Staff
Mark Adams
- Senior Research Scientist
- Evolutionary Biology Unit

Biography
The Evolutionary Biology Unit's longest-serving researcher, with over 33 years experience in the molecular systematics of the Australian fauna
- a leading authority on allozyme electrophoresis, one of the first molecular genetic techniques and still highly relevant to most areas of molecular systematics
- over 145 refereed publications on a great diversity of organismal groups encompassing bacteria, protozoans, invertebrates, and most vertebrate groups
- current major research interests are cryptic biodiversity in the Australian freshwater fishes and the evolutionary origins of unisexual lineages in Australian skinks (Menetia) and fishes (Hypseleotris)
- co-author of a major international reference book on allozyme analysis
- Chief or Joint Investigator on eight major and numerous small research grants
- has played a prominent role in building the unit's frozen tissue collection, by far the largest in Australia and one of the world's most significant collections of frozen tissues
- provides fee-for-service (either for new research projects (see PDF Allozyme profiling service - information sheets.pdf]) or genetic monitoring of laboratory rodents (see PDF Genetic monitoring of laboratory rodents - information sheets.pdf]) and/or subsidised allozyme analyses (for collaborative projects, please inquire) to the Australian biomedical community (over 500 projects undertaken)
- expertise in the genetic quality control of inbred strains of laboratory rats and mice
- has worked collaboratively with more than 200 researchers (excluding current or past Museum staff) from over 40 different institutions/departments worldwide (including the CSIRO, most Australian Universities, numerous medical research institutions and state wildlife authorities)
- provides a rapid genetic identification service (i.e. within 3 hours - see PDF below) for fruit fly maggots for local and interstate departments of Primary Industry, allowing them to mount a rapid response for problem species
Major Publications: (for a full publication list for the past five years, see PDF below)
Baverstock, P. R., Adams, M., Polkinghorne, R., and Gelder, M. (1982). A sex‑linked enzyme in birds: Z‑chromosome conservation and lack of dosage compensation. Nature 296: 763‑766.
Adams, M., Foster, R., Hutchinson, M. N., Hutchinson, R. G., and Donnellan, S. C. (2003). The Australian scincid lizard Menetia greyii: a new instance of widespread vertebrate parthenogenesis. Evolution 57: 2619-2627.
Richardson, B. J., Baverstock, P. R., and Adams, M. (1986). Allozyme Electrophoresis ‑ A Handbook for Animal Systematics and Population Studies. (Academic Press, Sydney) 410pp. (735 citations – source Google Scholar)
Kawakami, T. Butlin, R., Adams, M., Saint, K., Paull, D., and Cooper, S. J. B. (2009). Re-examination of a proposed case of stasipatric speciation: phylogeography of the Australian morabine grasshoppers (Vandiemenella viatica species group). Molecular Ecology 18: 3429-3442.
Baverstock, P.R., Adams, M. and Beveridge, I. (1985). Biochemical differentiation in bile duct cestodes and their marsupial hosts. Molecular Biology and Evolution 2:321‑337.
Adams, M., Andrews, R. H., Robinson, B. E., Christy, P. E., Baverstock, P. R., Dobson, P. J., and Blackler, S. J. (1990). A genetic approach to species criteria in the amoeba Naegleria using allozyme electrophoresis. International Journal of Parasitology 19: 823‑834.
Oliver, P., Adams, M., Lee, M. S. Y., Hutchinson, M. N., and Doughty, P. (2009). Cryptic diversity in vertebrates: molecular data double estimates of species diversity in a radiation of Australian lizards (Diplodactylus, Gekkota). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276: 2001-2007.
Adams, M, Baverstock, P. R., Watts, C. H. S., and Reardon, T. (1987). Electrophoretic resolution of species boundaries in Australian Microchiroptera. I. Eptesicus (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae). Australian Journal of Biological Sciences 40: 143‑162.
Murphy, N. P., Adams, M., Cooper, S., and Austin, A. D. (2009). Extensive cryptic speciation and multiple independent colonisations by freshwater amphipods in the isolated groundwater springs of the Great Artesian Basin. Molecular Ecology 18: 109–122.
Allozyme profiling service information sheets
Genetic monitoring of laboratory strains using allozyme electrophoresis

