ACONITE: Assessment of Carrying capacity cONcept for specIes richness in planT assEmblages

Objective

A crucial challenge of the next years will be to conserve biodiversity under climate changes. Anticipation is an essential facet to attack this challenge, where correlative models have a main role. To date, most species richness (SR) modeling methodologies have not accounted for real community assembly processes, or failed to capture the underlying mechanisms. We now need to generate more realistic SR models. The first step is to understand the mechanisms that drive the organization of species at community level, to reach this aim we will test the concept of carrying capacity and disentangle the importance of biogeographical large-scale processes and environmental filters local processes. After that, we could improve the outcome of SR models taking into account the previous point. In this project, I will develop, implement and test a framework for modeling species assemblages and obtaining spatially explicit projections by taking plants assemblages as model system. I will proceed step-by-step:
1) I will collect species and environmental data.
2) I will test the concept of carrying capacity and better account for community assembly rules in richness modeling with different tools (ecophylogenetics, remote sensing, and analysis of turnover of betadiversity).
3) I will perform stacked species distribution models.
4) I will define macroecological constraints on community properties through macroecological modeling.
5) Using data and results previously obtained, I will program rules to introduce real community assembly processes in the stacked species distributions models.
6) I will test the robustness and importance of methodological aspects running the models with different parameters.
7) I will apply the previous framework to develop a new generation of climate change projections.
Project results will be relevant for both theoretical science and conservation biology.

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.

• engineering and technology environmental engineering remote sensing
• natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
• natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes

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-2013-IEF - 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-2013-IEF
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