Southeast Asian pholcid spiders: diversity, phylogenetic relationships, and multiple convergent shifts among microhabitats

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Pholcid spiders are among the most diverse spider families but their mainly tropical distribution and lack of specialists have long hampered knowledge about the group. A concentrated effort over the last 15 years has dramatically improved the situation but Southeast Asian taxa remain a major gap of knowledge. The present project aims at closing this gap and focuses, apart from the taxonomy, on three major questions: (1) how do Southeast Asian taxa fit into the phylogeny of Pholcidae? (2) Are patterns of diversity and distribution comparable to those in New World and African regions? (3) Is there evidence for a causal relationship between evolutionary shifts among microhabitats and species diversity (adaptive speciation)? Funding is sought mainly for four items that are considered prerequisites for a successful completion of this project: (1) for expeditions to collect DNA-ready specimens and data about microhabitat and diversity; (2) for consumables for molecular work; (3) for a PhD student to do fundamental molecular work and taxonomic treatment of specific taxa; (4) for a Mercator Fellow (Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov) to work in close cooperation on the molecular phylogeny and on the analyses on adaptive speciation.