Collaborative Research: Niche evolution, ecological limits, and the macroecology of land plant biodiversity

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The study of the long-term evolution of plant species diversity is important to understanding current losses or maintenance of diversity as habitats shift and become fragmented. This project will examine how diversity has evolved in the western hemisphere using a database of over 100,000 plant species. Using new approaches in informatics applied to genetic, geographical and environmental data, the project will investigate the possible causes of shifts in species diversity at extensive geographic scales by considering evolutionary diversification, dispersal, adaptation, and coexistence. Additionally, the project will determine if hard limits on species diversity exist and the extent to which these are determined by environmental history. This is a "Big Data" project that will simultaneously develop tools in informatics and train students on the use of these statistical tools. The tools will be made widely available, and training will build on the collaboration among those at a liberal arts college, a comprehensive master's institution, and a research university.This research project will contribute to a predictive science of biodiversity based on underlying ecological and evolutionary processes. The Botanical Information and Ecology Network will be leveraged to test explanations for assembly of diverse biomes over evolutionary time by taking advantage of recent advances in biodiversity informatics, phylogenetic analysis, and the modeling of multivariate niche hypervolumes. How the evolutionary contingencies of adaptation, diversification, and dispersal interact with possible ecological limits on the niche space of different environments will be investigated. The taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of whole biomes and clades will be quantified in order to model niche evolution and biome shifts at extensive geographic and temporal scales. Whether evolutionary biome shifts are systematically associated with changes in functional traits or niche hypervolumes will be examined. Whether or not the functional niche space of biomes becomes saturated over evolutionary time, and if saturation reflects ecological limits on diversification through physiology, will be tested. The research will contribute novel answers to some of the most persistent questions in ecology, evolution, and biogeography, as well as innovative new tools in ecoinformatics.