Center for Applied Tropical Ecology and Conservation: Biodiversity Conservation Under the Scenario of Climate Change

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The University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus (UPR-RP) is renewing its Center for Applied Tropical Ecology (CATEC) via Phase II CREST support. CATEC serves as a catalyst for systemic change ineducational, research development and structural institutional transformation in a Hispanic minorityserving institution. CATEC's mission is to promote a) training of human resources at the graduate,undergraduate and post-doctoral levels, b) state-of-the-art research in conservation biology andenvironmental issues, c) infrastructure improvement, and d) production of relevant results for policy andconservation management. The unifying theme of CATEC is biodiversity conservation under thescenario of climate change. The Molecular Ecology, Evolution and Genetics (MEEG) area will addressconservation issues using molecular markers to understand the phylogeny, the spatial distribution ofgenetic diversity, and species interactions in the Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The Species andPopulation Management (SPM) area will focus on impact of interactions between exotic and nativespecies, and understanding patterns of regional diversification and distribution of endangered species andspecies of economic importance. The Ecosystem Processes (EP) area will address the question of howspecies, both terrestrial and marine, respond to climate variability, by comparing the effect of paleoclimaticchange with the impact of temporal and spatial variation in climate as well as historicalanthropogenic changes in land use on ecosystem structure and function.