There are three threads that run through and tie my research together. My first ever research project involved working on parentage analysis in deer, and assessing the phylogenetic relationships among deer. That was my first and last research with large mammals, with subsequent research mostly involving invertebrates, the first of the three threads. I kind of see the change from mammals to invertebrates as inevitable, given the vast number of invertebrate species relative to mammals. However, as well as invertebrate organisms, my research has been peppered with plants (including among them Arabidopsis, Pinus, Quercus, Carpinus, Juniperus and Eryngium), reptiles (species from the iguana genus Ctenosaura and the lizard genus Lacerta), lesser sized mammals (the hedgehog genus Erinaceus), fish (Hypoplectrus and Salmo), and birds (Saxicola and Anthus). While this might seem like an eclectic mix of organisms, if one thinks of them as vehicles for DNA, then many commonalities that allow one to address different research questions become apparent. That is to say, while my leanings are towards invertebrates as useful and interesting study organisms, I have been and continue to be interested by other groups, particularly when they present interesting and feasible research opportunities. In addition to invertebrates, islands have been and continue to be a central theme throughout my research, presenting the second of the three threads. A thread influenced by fate, coincidence and choice. Apart from having always lived on an island, perhaps half the papers I have published relate to island systems in one way or another. Island systems offer many advantages for studying evolution and ecology. Islands can simplify the complexity of broader continental systems, sometimes presenting a lot of evolutionary, ecological and environmental variance within a relatively small geographic domain. The third thread is DNA. Most of my research involves the use of DNA, primarily DNA sequence data. Occasionally DNA itself has been the focus of study (e.g. the evolution of disease resistance genes in Arabidopsis), or the analysis of DNA has been the focus (e.g. the joint analysis of ancient and modern DNA for parameter estimation, population genetic and phylogeographic analysis). However my real interest is in the application of DNA sequence data for recovering evolutionary and ecological information, including but not limited to historical biogeography, phylogeography, speciation, ecological interactions, trophic ecology, and community assembly and structure.