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Dr. Voris focuses on the ecology, biogeography, phylogeography, and systematics of aquatic snakes in the old-world tropics and on comparisons of old-world tropical rain forest amphibian and reptile communities. These faunistic studies have led to the exploration of how tectonics, climate change, and dynamic changes in sea levels have shaped the landscape of Indochina and Sundaland during the Quaternary Period.

In freshwater swamps and marine estuaries in Southeast Asia, Dr. Voris is exploring how aquatic snakes budget their activities between our planet’s two major life zones, land and water. In these tropical environments snakes belonging to several  lineages have evolved  into aquatic habitats. Each lineage represents an independent evolutionary experiment – each  illustrating how life activities can be partitioned between these two life zones. Through comparisons between lineages, and among species within lineages, we are gaining insights into the reasons why these fundamentally terrestrial vertebrates have re-invaded the sea so often through their evolutionary history.

In the lowland tropical rain forests of Borneo, Dr. Voris and Dr. Robert Inger maintain a long-standing interest in the natural changes that occur from place to place and through time in communities of amphibians and reptiles. Recently their findings have been applied to the issue of worldwide declining amphibian populations.