Rate My Professor Graham McCulloch

Dr Graham McCulloch is a Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology within the Sciences Division at the University of Otago. He completed his undergraduate degree and PhD in Zoology at the University of Otago from 2006 to 2011. Following his doctorate, he gained industry experience at AgResearch and then served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences from November 2012 to February 2018, researching biological control agents while taking two parental leave breaks. McCulloch returned to the University of Otago in 2018 as a Research Fellow.

His research specializations include biogeography of endemic insects, molecular systematics, macroecology, evolutionary genetics and genomics, and biological control. McCulloch investigates the evolutionary impacts of human-driven deforestation and reforestation on New Zealand's native insects, particularly stoneflies, employing genomic tools and ecological sampling to reveal mechanisms of rapid adaptation and anthropogenic evolution. Current projects address whether lowered treelines from deforestation have reshaped endemic insect fauna and test reforestation's potential to reverse biodiversity loss. He has secured major awards including the inaugural Mana Tūānuku Research Leader Fellowship from the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2024, valued at $1,160,000 over four years, and two Marsden Fund grants, one being a Fast-Start grant for his postdoctoral project on deforestation's evolutionary effects.

Key publications feature 'Human-driven evolution of color in a stonefly mimic' (Ni et al., 2024), 'Rapid adaptation in a fast-changing world: Emerging insights from insect genomics' (McCulloch et al., 2022), 'Genomics Reveals Widespread Ecological Speciation in Flightless Insects' (McCulloch et al., 2021), 'Ebony underpins Batesian mimicry in an insect melanic polymorphism' (Foster et al., 2022), 'Targeted eDNA metabarcoding reveals new populations of a range-limited stonefly' (McCulloch et al., 2025), and 'Do freshwater insect assemblages in exotic plantations resemble those from native forest? Evidence from environmental DNA' (Fan et al., 2025). With more than 1,200 citations across 86 publications, McCulloch's contributions advance knowledge of insect responses to environmental change, informing conservation and restoration strategies. He presents seminars on topics such as anthropogenic evolution of New Zealand's endemic insects.