Biotic interactions and the generation and organisation of biodiversity

生物相互作用以及生物多样性的产生和组织

• 批准号: NE/G012938/2
• 负责人: Gavin Thomas
• 金额: $ 5.67万
• 依托单位: University of Sheffield
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FG012938%2F2
• 关键词: Biotic; interactions; generation; organisation; biodiversity

One of the biggest challenges facing biologists is to predict, and perhaps prevent, the loss of biodiversity. For some groups, such as birds and mammals, we know where species live and can identify biodiversity hotspots - areas of the world with unusually high numbers of species. But knowing where species live is not enough: to determine how biodiversity will be affected by global change we need to understand the evolutionary processes that generate it. Yet, species do not evolve in isolation: they evolve together in the context of communities or ecosystems. Consider two species that need the same limited resource. Can the two species co-exist? One might think not - they are in competition with one another and for one species to succeed then it must do so at the expense of the other. This may often be true, but an alternative is for one or both species to use the resource in different ways, or even to use a different resource altogether. The finches of the Galapagos Islands, made famous by Charles Darwin, reveal both of these outcomes of competition: where two species, the medium ground finch and the small ground finch, occur together on the same island they can be easily distinguished by differences in beak size, but on some islands one species is much reduced in number or even absent altogether and in such cases the two species typically have similar, intermediate, beak sizes. So the interactions between species in communities are important as drivers of evolutionary change and in determining which species live where. The aim of my research is to understand how interactions that act over generations within communities can influence the evolution of biodiversity over thousands to millions of years. Does competition cause evolution to speed up? Can changes in diversity through time in the fossil record be attributed to competition? My solution to understanding these problems is to build computer models that mimic competitive interactions and generate predictions of evolutionary change among competing species. This is an exciting approach because by mimicking a range of evolutionary scenarios we can generate predictions of how species change over long time-scales and how these changes alter biodiversity. More importantly, we can compare our predictions with real data from living and fossil species to test how different ecological processes determine how species and their traits diversify and which species live together. This is a major challenge as ecological communities contain multiple species and each species occurs in multiple communities. Not only that but the importance of species interactions is influenced by other factors. If there is ecological opportunity such as the chance to occupy a new habitat, then the pressures driving evolution will change. Ecological opportunity could arise due to environmental change, the evolution of a key innovation or a host of other factors. For example, a group of Caribbean lizards called anoles have diversified rapidly to occupy trees, partly due to the evolution of a unique toe-pad. This type of ecological opportunity may even lead to the formation of new species as different populations of the same parent species diverge from one another, as is the case for anoles. To prise apart the role of ecological opportunity and competition in generating biodiversity I explore variation and evolution in the morphology, ecology and behaviour in different groups of organisms. Hummingbirds are one such group. There are 330 hummingbird species that feed primarily on nectar, occupy diverse habitats across their geographic range, and display several feeding behaviours. In short, they provide an exceptional group to test the relative importance of competition and ecological opportunity in driving large-scale evolution change. By combining this real-world data with predictive models, I will provide new insight into how past and present-day biological diversity is generated and maintained.

生物学家面临的最大挑战之一是预测甚至防止生物多样性的丧失。对于某些群体，例如鸟类和哺乳动物，我们知道物种生活在哪里，并且可以识别生物多样性热点 - 世界上物种数量异常多的地区。但知道物种生活在哪里还不够：要确定生物多样性将如何受到全球变化的影响，我们需要了解产生生物多样性的进化过程。然而，物种并不是孤立进化的：它们在群落或生态系统的背景下共同进化。考虑需要相同有限资源的两个物种。这两个物种可以共存吗？人们可能不这么认为——它们彼此竞争，一个物种要想成功，就必须以牺牲另一个物种为代价。这通常可能是正确的，但另一种选择是一个或两个物种以不同的方式使用资源，甚至完全使用不同的资源。加拉帕戈斯群岛的雀类因查尔斯·达尔文而闻名，它们揭示了这两种竞争结果：当中型地雀和小型地雀这两个物种同时出现在同一个岛上时，可以通过喙的差异轻松区分它们大小，但在某些岛屿上，某一物种的数量大大减少，甚至完全消失，在这种情况下，这两种物种通常具有相似的、中间的喙尺寸。因此，群落中物种之间的相互作用作为进化变化的驱动因素和决定物种生活在哪里非常重要。我研究的目的是了解社区内几代人的相互作用如何影响数千至数百万年生物多样性的演变。竞争会导致进化加速吗？化石记录中随着时间的推移多样性的变化可以归因于竞争吗？我理解这些问题的解决方案是建立计算机模型来模拟竞争性相互作用并生成竞争物种之间进化变化的预测。这是一种令人兴奋的方法，因为通过模仿一系列进化场景，我们可以预测物种在长时间尺度内如何变化以及这些变化如何改变生物多样性。更重要的是，我们可以将我们的预测与现存物种和化石物种的真实数据进行比较，以测试不同的生态过程如何决定物种及其性状的多样化以及哪些物种共同生活。这是一个重大挑战，因为生态群落包含多个物种，每个物种出现在多个群落中。不仅如此，物种相互作用的重要性还受到其他因素的影响。如果存在生态机会，例如占据新栖息地的机会，那么驱动进化的压力就会改变。环境变化、关键创新的演变或许多其他因素可能会产生生态机会。例如，一群名为安乐蜥（anoles）的加勒比蜥蜴迅速多样化以占据树木，部分原因是独特的趾垫的进化。这种生态机会甚至可能导致新物种的形成，因为同一亲本物种的不同种群彼此分化，变色蜥蜴就是这种情况。为了区分生态机会和竞争在产生生物多样性方面的作用，我探索了不同生物群体的形态、生态和行为的变化和进化。蜂鸟就是这样的群体之一。有 330 种蜂鸟主要以花蜜为食，在其地理范围内拥有不同的栖息地，并表现出多种摄食行为。简而言之，它们提供了一个特殊的群体来测试竞争和生态机会在推动大规模进化变化中的相对重要性。通过将这些现实世界的数据与预测模型相结合，我将提供关于过去和现在的生物多样性如何产生和维持的新见解。

项目成果

Fossils and living taxa agree on patterns of body mass evolution: a case study with Afrotheria.

• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.2023
• 发表时间: 2015-12-22
• 期刊: Proceedings. Biological sciences
• 作者: Puttick MN;Thomas GH
• 通讯作者: Thomas GH

Using phylogenetic trees to test for character displacement: a model and an example from a desert mammal community

• DOI: 10.1890/11-0400.1
• 发表时间: 2012-08-01
• 期刊: ECOLOGY
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Davies, T. Jonathan;Cooper, Natalie;Meiri, Shai
• 通讯作者: Meiri, Shai

Trait evolution in adaptive radiations: modelling and measuring interspecific competition on phylogenies

适应性辐射中的性状进化：建模和测量系统发育的种间竞争

• DOI: 10.1101/033647
• 发表时间: 2015
• 作者: Clarke M

A cautionary note on the use of Ornstein Uhlenbeck models in macroevolutionary studies.

• DOI: 10.1111/bij.12701
• 发表时间: 2016-05
• 期刊: Biological journal of the Linnean Society. Linnean Society of London
• 作者: Cooper N;Thomas GH;Venditti C;Meade A;Freckleton RP
• 通讯作者: Freckleton RP

High rates of evolution preceded the origin of birds.

• DOI: 10.1111/evo.12363
• 发表时间: 2014-05
• 期刊: Evolution; international journal of organic evolution
• 作者: Puttick MN;Thomas GH;Benton MJ
• 通讯作者: Benton MJ