Michael J Andersen - US grants

Land animals of Southwest Pacific island chains exhibit unique patterns of diversification. Explanations for these patterns have influenced the fields of ecology and evolution, yet the processes that produced these patterns are little studied. Furthermore, few scientists have visited many of the more remote and rugged parts of this island region, and animals in these areas are poorly known. This project contains two major components: (1) fieldwork to survey vertebrate communities (birds, frogs, lizards, snakes and mammals) and collect specimen material across the diverse biological communities of the Southwest Pacific; and (2) laboratory-based genetic analysis to study the evolutionary history of these animal groups as well as contemporary interactions among island populations. Field and laboratory work will enable the description of new species, redefine patterns of biodiversity, and provide much-needed comparative material for world-class global collections. Importantly, training and education of US university students is integrated throughout this work. US undergraduate and graduate students will work closely with students from host countries, implementing field research projects under the guidance of team leaders and senior graduate students. This collaboration between US and local scientists, students, and non-government stakeholders will help clarify regional patterns of vertebrate biodiversity within this poorly known biodiversity hotspot.

Modern terrestrial vertebrate collections from the Southwest Pacific archipelagos will allow testing and reinterpretation of fundamental ecological and evolutionary hypotheses. Biodiversity surveys will focus on collections of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Georeferenced collections will include multiple preparation types, genetic samples, blood smears, gastrointestinal contents, and associated parasite faunas. High quality audio recordings of species vocalizations will document these often overlooked aspects of the phenotype. Audio data will include targeted recordings of individual birds, bats, frogs, and geckos, as well as environmental recordings of dawn and dusk choruses. Reduced representation genomic sampling of populations (RAD-seq and sequence capture) will be used to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships among species and populations, as well as to assess levels of gene flow among island populations with varying degrees of geographic isolation. Data will be made available through open-access repositories and results will be synthesized in a comparative framework across all terrestrial vertebrates.

How and why species diversify is a central question of biology and the process of speciation is how all biodiversity is created. Islands provide an excellent setting in which to study speciation in wild populations due to their discrete geography and well-characterized geologic record. The Indo-Pacific, from Southeast Asia to Polynesia, is the cradle of speciation theory and home to numerous geographic radiations of widespread, rapidly evolving species complexes. This project will synthesize genomics and state-of-the-art trait datasets to reveal processes that promote rapid radiations in nature. Specifically, it will use a widespread, species-rich genus of island kingfishers (Aves: Todiramphus) as its study system. This project aims to make broadly applicable and generalizable predictions about the speciation process. The outcomes of this project will be a model for future speciation research in the Pacific and serve as a springboard for pioneering new ways of studying complex phenotypes and their interactions with nature. This project will engage the public through virtual and face-to-face experiences. The researchers will create virtual collections experiences (VCEs) that highlight the associated natural history collections at the Museum of Southwestern Biology and The Field Museum. These online tools will reveal how data are collected from specimens and used to address the project’s research objectives. The VCEs will be developed as education modules for grades 9–12, complete with lesson plans and student learning outcomes. The researchers will development a highly multisensory exhibit at The Field Museum, playing on the project’s themes of color evolution that will reach an estimated 500,000 people in Chicago. An educational workshop will be held at the Museum of Southwestern Biology that will provide hands-on training and experience in biodiversity science to Native American and Hispanic students from UNM and New Mexico’s rural-area institutions. It will showcase professional opportunities in STEM with a focus on museum-based biodiversity science.

Speciation genomics addresses the roles of ecology, gene flow, and genomic architecture in the formation of species. This project proposes an integrative study of systematics, biogeography, plumage diversification, and ecological adaptation to test multiple hypotheses of the factors that promoted rapid diversification in a diverse and widespread radiation of island kingfishers. Todiramphus kingfishers occur across the entire Indo-Pacific and their diversification rate rivals those of “classic” adaptive radiations. This study system provides replicated instances of sympatry and isolation, as well as divergent ecologies required for a synthetic study of diversification. The project will generate diverse datasets including whole genomes, ecological niche models, and phenotypic traits, to study how these factors facilitated rapid radiation on islands over the last 10 million years. The proposed research will leverage this unique geographic context to provide novel insights into the multifaceted process of speciation by (a) quantifying the presence and extent of gene flow and how novel changes in genomic architecture influenced diversification; (b) assessing how extrinsic traits (plumage coloration, biogeography, and relative niche conservatism) promoted or inhibited species divergence in the clade; and (c) through a novel test of the abundance-niche-center hypothesis in the context of genomic and phenotypic diversity.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.