Towards a unified mechanistic model of oceanic island biogeography

Project Information

UNISLAND

Grant agreement ID: 747238

DOI

10.3030/747238

Project terminated on 28 September 2018

EC signature date 1 March 2017

Start date 16 September 2017

End date 15 September 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 257 191,20

EU contribution

€ 257 191,20

Coordinated by

AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - UNISLAND (Towards a unified mechanistic model of oceanic island biogeography)

Reporting period: 2017-09-16 to 2019-09-15

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overall goal of this proposal is to reduce the gap between the state-of-the-art of biodiversity analysis and a unified theory of island biogeography, and in doing so increase the policy relevance of island biogeographic theory, which potentially result in the conservation of islands and their cultural and biological values.

During the period here reported, we have mainly focussed on Objs. 1 and 2. In Obj. 1, we investigated spatiotemporal patterns of biodiversity across oceanic archipelagos, by testing the prediction that island age and species age are positively correlated against the alternative model where variation in species age increases with island age. We developed and are applying novel phylogenetic meta-analyses to address this question. UNISLAND is thus shedding light on the tempo, timing and underlying mechanisms for the creation and loss of diversity during island ontogeny. Although the original work plan during this period was also supposed to focus on aspects related to the distribution in space and time of zonal ecosystems in Hawaii and the Canary Islands by means of community-level distribution modeling of their past, present and future potential distributions (Obj. 2), it has been very difficult to gather fine spatial-scale environmental layers, which has become the main focus of the work related to the objective, in order to be able to run community-level distribution modeling analyses.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

"
We have examined the timing, tempo and underlying mechanisms contributing to the creation and loss of biodiversity during island ontogeny (Obj. 1). During the Outgoing Phase at Prof. R. Gillespie's lab at University California, Berkeley, the Experienced Researcher (ER), Dr. J. Patiño, has undertaken comparative analyses of speciation and diversification to make inferences on the underlying evolutionary mechanisms that shape island biodiversity over time. The main focus of this period has been to compile a broad set of species-level arthropod and angiosperm phylogenies for (sub-)tropical oceanic archipelagos worldwide, which has been extracted from scientific journals and public repositories such as Genbank and TreeBase. To be considered, a given phylogeny had to meet these criteria: (i) oceanic archipelago composed of at least three islands of different geological age; (ii) species-level phylogenies, including SIEs and/or MIEs, with at least ~80% or more of the species included; and (iii) branch lengths calibrated to time (chronograms) or proportional to molecular substitution rates. Here the ER dedicated a substantial amount of time to script in R in order to have a set of functions and scripts that allow him to download all the sequences associated to a specific paper (defined by the DOI). In the process of completing this work, the RPS Dr. Emerson and the ER realized there were important conceptual problems regarding two key concepts in island evolution and biogeography, which are closely linked to our goal in WP1 that are: anagenesis and cladogenesis. This was the fundamental reason that motivated Dr. Emerson and Dr. Patiño to publish a mini-review in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. This has been followed by an additional letter to respond to a critical article. The two references are included here and a pre-print version can be directly downloaded from my website (www.jairopatino.com) and at the journal website.During this period, I had the opportunity to present the conceptual idea and preliminary results of UNISLAND WP1 at the 7th International Conference on Environmental Future, entitled ""Humans and Island Environments"", which was held from April 16-20th 2018 at the Hawaiian International Conference Center in Honolulu. In conclusion, the compilation of a large phylogenetic data repository as well as preliminary analyses were achieved during the first six months. We will soon submit a third paper using the information gathered in WP1, with the target journal being Ecology Letters or PNAS."

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

"
Within the 11.5 month life of the project I have gained important knowledge that fulfills the objectives of UNISLAND for that period. The large phylogenetic database, together with a number of customized scripts that function to retrieve large amounts of phylogenetic data for the Hawaii and the Canary Islands, and the knowledge gained regarding the fauna and flora of these two iconic volcanic archipelagoes have established the background needed to subsequently conduct further studies on island evolution, with a focus on speciation. Such achievements will include the development of approaches for the identification of demographic trajectories and therefore species that are at the edge of extinction due to natural and/or anthropogenic factors. These objectives that were beyond the termination date of the project UNISLAND will now be developed within the Spanish government funded position that the ER has been awarded. All together these results will be part of a minimum of three publications in top scientific journals. The first paper is in an advanced phase of development, and deals with patterns of evolution and diversification across different oceanic archipelagos and taxonomic groups based on more than 100 studies compiled that included published and novel data. The second paper will be based on the ongoing database for modelling the potential distribution of the native ecosystems in the Canary Islands, and Hawaii. A third paper will be a data-type paper that will include the fine-grained climatic layers generated for the Canary Islands that will be used in the former paper. Note that the early termination was due to that award of a 5-year tenure-track position to the ER, a position that is associated with a new project to study so the ecology and evolution of island biotas that will build up on the UNISLAND project.

UNISLAND was terminated after 11.5 months, and as such there was reduced measurable activity with regard to conference attendance (planned for the first year of UNISLAND), outreach activities, publications, or other activities to disseminate results. I attended the 7th International Conference on Environmental Future, entitled ""Humans and Island Environments"", which was held from April 16-20th 2018 at the Hawaiian International Conference Center in Honolulu. Importantly, one paper was published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution related to the first Obj., along with a response letter, and two papers are in an advanced stage of development. The first paper is a meta-analysis of phylogenies of spiders, angiosperms and beetles from the archipelagos of the Canary Islands and Hawaii, but also including a number of other archipelagos such as the Azores and Galapagos. This paper is in a relative advance state of development, with a bulk of the analyses already performed. There is a second and third paper related to the Obj. 2. The first focuses on methodological aspects, fundamentally data including some important advances regarding to the macroclimatic layers that describe environmental variation across the archipelago of the Canary Islands, and the second on the predictions of community distributions in the past and future under scenarios of climate change. Due to the early termination, we have accordingly modified the plan for exploitation of the results."

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