Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/G013179/1
Disentangling ecological and evolutionary forces driving community composition
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Dr D Fontaneto, Imperial College London, Life Sciences - Biology
- Grant held at:
- Imperial College London, Life Sciences - Biology
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Marine
- Freshwater
- Overall Classification:
- Freshwater
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Science Topics:
- Population Genetics/Evolution
- Systematics & Taxonomy
- Population Ecology
- Community Ecology
- Abstract:
- Why are there so many species? How can similar species survive together? Which are the forces driving and allowing species coexistence? These questions are pivotal in ecology, as the answers can potentially change our views on ecological and evolutionary processes driving diversification, and change our priorities in biodiversity conservation. Competition has long been proposed as an important force in structuring communities, but only recently, with the increases in the reliability of phylogeny reconstructions, phylogenetic investigations of community structure have become possible, testing the effect of competition between species. The main idea is that closely related species potentially compete for resources more than distantly related species. Most of the studies which tried to test this phylogenetic effect of competition in structuring community assembly using up to date phylogenetic comparative analyses dealt with plants and bacteria, while for animals analyses have been performed only on insect food-webs and mammal and fish communities. Therefore, results are hampered by availability and reliability of data on species assemblages. Moreover, direct tests cannot be performed with mammals, insect food-webs and plants to support the idea that phylogenetic relationship has a direct effect on competition. My project will involve a different model: rotifers. They are tiny animals living in water, but also in moss and lichen patches, where they can reach high densities of individuals and high species richness, with >100 species living together. Such high diversity will enhance the power of the tests, in comparison with the analysed mammalian communities, with much less than 10 species. The first part of the project will involve sampling different communities in different habitats in different countries in Europe and USA, obtaining a molecular phylogeny directly from the animals sampled in the field, and performing analyses of community structure to find evidence of competition (species living together are more spread in the phylogenetic tree than expected by change). An alternative hypothesis could be that only closely related species will be able to thrive in any habitat, because of constraints on adaptations; in this case, evidence of phylogenetic effect on habitat selectivity will be given by the fact that species living together are more clustered in the phylogenetic tree than expected by change. Using a different and more experimentally tractable model will support early ideas on competition in communities, but the true advances of this study rely on the subsequent tests that can be performed in the lab to support the hypotheses developed from field data. Once pairs of species coming out as potential strong competitors are identified, it will be possible to grow them in lab cultures, and directly test the effect of competition under different conditions. This will allow first to support (or deny) the hypotheses based on field data, and second to model the processes acting in nature.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/G013179/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Advanced Fellow (FEC)
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Advanced Fellow
This fellowship award has a total value of £499,516
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DA - Other Directly Allocated | DI - T&S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £47,316 | £172,989 | £202,754 | £57,814 | £2,494 | £16,148 |
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