Carl Hjelmen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor Utah Valley University
Media
Biography
Industry Expertise
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
College of Science Dean's Distinguished Faculty - Scholarship Award
UVU College of Science - 2025
Education
Texas A&M University
Ph.D.
Entomology
2017
Augustana College
B.A.
Biology
2013
Languages
- English
Media Appearances
UVU Where in the World Are You: Vancouver
UVU News online
2023-02-07
Carl Hjelmen, a UVU biology professor, said, “A lot of these meetings tend to focus primarily on principal investigators, specifically professors, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students. Undergraduates tend to be underrepresented.”
Research Grants
Survey of Forensically Relevant Flies of Utah and Investigation into their Gut Contents
UVU GEL 2 Year, Utah Valley University
2025 - 2027
Carrion Cartographers: Mapping Blow Fly Species Across the Colorado Plateau
Capitol Reef Field Station, Utah Valley University
2025 - 2026
Insect Genome Size Evolution: What do we know and where do we go from here? International Plant and Animal Genome Meeting, San Diego, CA
UVU COS SAC, Utah Valley University
2023 - 2024
Genome size and chromosome number are critical metrics for accurate genome assembly assessment in Eukaryota, Genetics
UVU COS SAC, Utah Valley University
2024
Courses
Introduction to Bioinformatics
BIOL 1011
Ethical Issues in Biology
BIOL 4260
Principles of Evolution
BIOL 4500
Student Research
BIOL 4890R
Articles
Population structure of the Jewel scarab Chrysina gloriosa
Genome Biology and Evolution2026-05-20
The sky island mountain ranges of the southwestern United States offer a natural setting for examining how climate and geography impact population structure and gene flow. The jewel scarab, Chrysina gloriosa, is a charismatic beetle restricted to high-elevation habitats in these mountains, where isolation and environmental change may be driving population divergence. We used low-coverage whole-genome resequencing and species distribution modelling to study population structure, gene flow, and demographic history across five mountain ranges in Arizona and West Texas.
Dismantling Chromosomal Stasis Across the Eukaryotic Tree of Life
bioRxiv2026-04-16
Chromosome number shapes genome organization, recombination, and speciation, yet how fast it evolves across the tree of life has never been measured. We analyzed 63,682 karyotypes across 55 eukaryotic clades and found that dysploidy rates vary by 844-fold, from approximately 0.0008 to 0.7 events per million years. This variation does not follow kingdom boundaries or deep phylogeny; intraclade variance exceeds interclade differences by more than an order of magnitude. Even birds, the textbook example of chromosomal stasis, exceed the global median rate once microchromosome dynamics are resolved.
Phylotranscriptomics and genome size evolution in Leucaena (Fabaceae): Paleotetraploid genomic stability overshadows diploidization and environmental effects
American Journal of Botany2026-04-01
Advances in transcriptomic and reduced representation genomic sequencing are deepening our understanding of how hybridization, reticulation, and environmental variation impact species diversification and genome size. Leucaena is a useful system for exploring the genomic basis of allopatric and allopolyploid speciation events and the effect of environmental pressures on genome size across 30° of latitude. We investigate phylogenetic relationships, the roles of polyploidy and hybridization in speciation, and genome size evolution in the genus.
Distinct temporal trajectories of bacterial and fungal networks during agricultural rewilding
Science of The Total Environment2025-12-15
Tropical land-use change from native forests to oil palm plantations has created widespread biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and disruption of microbial communities. As rewilding initiatives emerge to restore ecosystem function in post-agricultural landscapes, understanding microbial community assembly, diversity dynamics, and interaction networks is essential for informing effective restoration strategies.
Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule 1 evolution and its relationship to sociality: hymenopteran Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule 1 exhibits accelerated evolution in variable exon regions
Insect Systematics and Diversity2025-09-19
Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecules (DSCAM) are transmembrane domain proteins belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily and are expressed during brain development. While present in many other organisms, DSCAM has gone through multiple independent duplication events in arthropods and can form over 10,000 different isoforms through alternative splicing.
Isolation and Characterization of a Crude Oil-Tolerant Obligate Halophilic Bacterium from the Great Salt Lake of the United States of America
Microorganisms2025-07-23
Most large-scale crude oil spills occur in marine environments. We screened easily propagable/maintainable halophiles to develop agents for the bioremediation of marine spills. A bacterial strain isolated from a polluted region of the Great Salt Lake was characterized and tested for its ability to degrade crude oil.
Genome assembly of the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmerman) reveals the origins of gene content reduction in Dendroctonus
Royal Society Open Science Journal2024-12-11
Dendroctonus frontalis also known as southern pine beetle (SPB), is the most damaging insect forest pest in the southeastern United States. Genomic data are important to provide information on pest biology and to identify molecular targets to develop improved pest management approaches.
Genome size and chromosome number are critical metrics for accurate genome assembly assessment in Eukaryota
Genetics2024-08-04
The number of genome assemblies has rapidly increased in recent history, with NCBI databases reaching over 41,000 eukaryotic genome assemblies across about 2,300 species. Increases in read length and improvements in assembly algorithms have led to increased contiguity and larger genome assemblies.
