Half time seminar: “Identifying the processes driving diversification in tropical ecosystems”

Focus for Adrian’s PhD-project is to understand how traits in the palm family that relate to dispersal impact diversification, see below.  Opponent at the seminar is Wolf Eiserhardt, Aarhus university and examiner is Bengt Oxelman, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences. Adrian’s main supervisor is Christine Bacon (BioEnv). 

Brief summary

The world’s tropical regions are hothouses of biodiversity. A myriad of different factors have led to this biodiversity, and the aim of this thesis is to identify such factors. The palm family (Arecaceae) is an excellent group for this research as it is a plant family largely constrained to the tropics. Palms have evolved for the duration of modern rainforest existence and have rich data available. Questions regarding diversification that are explored in this thesis include how traits that relate to dispersal impact diversification. Also explored is how adjacent biomes with differing speciation and extinction rates interact and influence diversification. Further, biodiversity at the genomic level is examined to delimit species in light of cryptic diversity and to avoid misestimating overall diversity in an area. This work will lead to a greater understanding of why biodiversity varies globally and within the tropics and allow for more accurate estimates of existing biodiversity.