Lee Fitzgerald

• Ecology
• Conservation Biology
• Herpetology

Dr. Lee Fitzgerald is a herpetologist and Curator of the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles at the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections. The Fitzgerald Lab carries out research on evolutionary ecology and conservation biology of amphibians and reptiles. Dr. Fitzgerald’s research takes place primarily in the American Southwest and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The lab’s research addresses various conservation issues, for example, sustainable use as a conservation strategy in the tropics, wildlife trade, determinants of local and regional diversity, and mechanisms determining the persistence and extinction of invasive and native species. Dr. Fitzgerald has worked on the reptiles and amphibians of Paraguay and sustainable use of biodiversity in the tropics since 1980. In Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, he led research and management programs on caimans and tegu lizards (genus Tupinambis). In the USA, Dr. Fitzgerald has carried out a directed, long-term, research program on the lizard community in southeastern New Mexico and adjacent West Texas for 28 years, revealing mechanisms of ecological scaling in this system with particular attention to the imperiled Dunes Sagebrush Lizard. His research is currently focused on further developing ideas related to conservation scaling. Dr. Fitzgerald teaches the undergraduate courses Natural History of the Vertebrates and Herpetology and the graduate capstone course for the Applied Biodiversity Science Program. He created and directs the Applied Biodiversity Science Program and is serving as Chair of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Ph.D. Program and President-elect of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR). He has published more than 175 scholarly works on lizards, snakes, crocodilians, turtles, frogs, birds, elephants, and people.