How do time, climate change and adaptation shape the assembly and evolution of a diverse continental biota?

该项目将使用新的统计技术来分析生物多样性的模式，以测试时间、环境变化和进化适应如何塑造大陆环境中生物多样性的积累。将汇编澳大利亚最多样化的陆生脊椎动物群体（蜥蜴和蛇）的遗传和生态数据超级矩阵。这将有助于测试新生代（快速气候海侵和干旱化）对关键环境变化的宏观进化反应、谱系年龄与物种多样性之间的关系以及重大生态变化对物种形成、灭绝和形态多样化速度的影响。

This project will use new statistical techniques for analysing patterns of biological diversification to test how time, environmental change and evolutionary adaptation shape the accumulation of biodiversity in a continental setting. A supermatrix of genetic and ecological data for Australia's most diverse terrestrial vertebrate group (lizards and snakes) will be compiled. This will allow the testing of the macroevolutionary responses to key environmental changes through the Cainozoic (rapid climatic transgressions and aridification), the relationship between lineage age and species diversity and the effects of major ecological shifts on rates of speciation, extinction and morphological diversification.