DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Phylogenetic community ecology and diversification of hyperoliid frogs in the Afrotropics

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The lowland rainforests and montane forests of Africa are rich with biodiversity, but little is known about the ecological processes that have produced this high diversity. There is considerable debate about whether these different forest habitats are generating or maintaining diversity, and what ecological factors limit the number of species found in a given area. It has been proposed that the historically stable lowland rainforests of West Africa act to sustain old diversity, whereas the environmentally fluctuating montane forests of East Africa promote speciation and the generation of new diversity. This project tests that hypothesis using Hyperoliid frogs, which are Africa?s most diverse frog family, exhibiting the highest species richness in forested regions. The research will examine the factors promoting diversity by studying the number of species of hyperoliid frogs found in a given forest community, quantifying how ecologically similar those species are to one another, and determining the evolutionary relationships and ages of the species in the community. Comparing hyperoliid frog communities distributed across similar biogeographic regions as well across different kinds of forests, such as high elevation mountain forests and lowland rainforests, can uncover large-scale patterns of diversification in tropical Africa.Frogs have been used as indicator species, whose presence or absence in an environment provides an assessment of the environmental integrity. The threat of large-scale deforestation is immediate for most African countries, and habitat alteration will negatively impact the large numbers of forest dwelling species. By characterizing communities of hyperoliid frogs in different biogeographic regions in Africa, this study will establish a baseline for future monitoring and conservation efforts. Large-scale research across many African countries is both logistically and financially demanding, and therefore it is critical to establish and facilitate interactions within the community of researchers working in Africa. This project is the result of a major collaborative effort among over 22 researchers working in research institutions or universities located in the US, Europe, and Africa, and brings together a diverse group of researchers that will facilitate future cooperative efforts on similar projects.