Periodic Reporting for period 2 - GLOBAL (Tropical rain forest diversification: a GLOBAL approach)
Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2023-09-30
We are also gathering climate data deep into the past for the tropics. Post doc Delphine Tardif has been modeling paleoclimates at local (100km²) and regional scales throughout the last 100 million years at discrete times. She is now exploring how these past climatic variations have impacted the distribution and evolution of Annonaceae.
In parallel, PhD student Paola Santacruz has undertaken an in-depth study of Annonaceae-herbivore interactions in the most biodiverse place in the world, the Yasuní National Park in Amazonian Ecuador. She spent over a year there collecting data on nine different species such as what insects eat their leaves and the chemical composition of their leaves. She discovered a discrete but diverse community of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) species feeding on its leaves, as well as several ant species specialized in living on Annonaceae via an association with aphids. We believe that this interaction played a role in the evolution of Annonaceae. To get an idea of chemical composition of all Annonaceae species, we turned once again to herbarium specimens, and using Near Infra red scanning (NIRs), we generated chemical spectra for over 1900 species of Annonaceae (we are still scanning more species). Paola, and other students, will use this data to understand how chemical composition varied throughout the entire family, and if there is a link with evolution.
We are also generating a large dataset of morphological traits for all species. To date we have about 55’000 traits coded for over 1900 species. This is the largest such dataset produced to date. Finally, to get better insights into the distribution and conservation of Annonaceae species, PhD student Serafin Streiff is generating a large distribution dataset, using herbarium specimens. We undertook a citizen science project, where anybody could enter herbarium label information. This was applied within the “herbonautes” project of the largest herbarium in the world located in the museum of Paris, France.
All data generated will be made open access, especially via a website. For that bioinformatician Archimède Patipe is compiling all data and preparing the website.
In parallel, we are using near infra-red scanning on herbarium dried leaves. This will be used as a proxy to understand the evolution of chemical diversity across the family. Applying this technology to herbarium specimens is rarely done, at least not on this scale with thousands of species scanned.
By the end of the project we expect to unravel the evolutionary history of Annonaceae in rain forests at global and local levels covering millions of years. We shall infer the impact of human induced extinction of this family and how that impacts multiple dimensions of its biodiversity. In doing so, we shall provide important information about rain forest evolution which contribute towards the conservation of this most biodiverse ecosystems at global levels. All data will be made available online via a dedicated website.