Phylogenetic niche conservatism, the global amphibian diversity gradient and their worldwide decline

Objective

Explaining the causal mechanisms underlying the latitudinal gradient in species richness has long been a core objective for ecologists and biogeographers. The phylogenetic niche conservatism hypothesis (PNCH) is receiving increasing attention as a synthetic theory able to account not only for the high tropical richness of most taxa, but also for the exceptions to this pattern found in some groups. However, only a few studies have tested this hypothesis and, hence, the empirical support for PNCH as the primary driver of richness gradients at a large scale still remains limited. Because of the worldwide amphibian decline, large amounts of distributional, biological, phylogenetic and extinction risk data are increasingly available for researchers. Accordingly, PHYLONICHE will use a phylogenetically informed biogeographic approach to address a long-standing issue in ecology (i.e. why there are more species in the tropics?) and to explore the causal mechanisms underlying the global amphibian decline. Specifically, it will examine the following questions: (1) Do amphibian lineages tend to maintain their climatic niches over long evolutionary scales?;(2) is the observed global gradient in amphibian species richness a result of phylogenetically structured ecophysiological traits that limit the geographical distribution of species and clades?;(3) to what extent are older basal clades confined to the tropics and underrepresented in temperate regions, with younger derived clades showing higher species richness in extratropical regions?;(4) is there any relationship between a high degree of ecological specialization in terms of climatic niche breadth and higher extinction risk in amphibian species?;(5)which ecological factors and species biological traits are associated to a higher degree of extinction risk for amphibian species across the globe?;(6)which is the geographical location of areas with higher latent extinction risk for amphibian species at the global scale?

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

• natural sciences biological sciences ecology

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

• Biogeography
• Ectotherms
• Latent extinction risk
• Latitudinal gradient in species richness
• Macroecology
• Macroevolution

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008 - Marie Curie Action: "Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development"

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator