Macroecology and phylogeography for disentangling factors and processes shaping large scale groundwater biodiversity patterns in Europe

Föstudagur, November 27, 2015 – 12:30
David Eme is a post doc at the Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences and delivers the Friday biology talk.
He will talk about part of his doctoral work, titled Macroecology and phylogeography for disentangling factors and processes shaping large scale groundwater biodiversity patterns in Europe.

A set of disciplines attempt to understand causes of spatial biodiversity variations on Earth. This work, at the frontier between macroecology and phylogeography, is an attempt to disentangle the relative influence of environmental factors and processes (speciation, dispersion, extinction) shaping groundwater crustacean diversity in Europe. Groundwater habitats offer useful case studies for avoiding the effect of thermal seasonality, which is pervasive in surface ecosystems. The influence of multiple factors – especially productive energy and spatial heterogeneity – and regional variation in their relative importance provide the most parsimonious explanation of species richness patterns. This result undermines the prominent role attributed to the disproportionate extinction of species in northern European regions with high historical climate oscillations. However, these oscillations have probably selected vagile species which contribute to the increase in median range size of species with latitude. Reconstructing range dynamics shows that dispersal is a heterogeneous process within and among species. It may occur during short time windows between which local adaptation favors specialization. 

The Friday biology talks were initially organized by the Institute of Biology but now the Biology labs. 
Detailed schedule for the Fall of 2015 is available.

Háskóli ÍslandsPicture Cetina spring in Croatia – from internet.