Forecasting biodiversity losses in Wallacea from ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes.

Wallacea地区位于西部的婆罗洲和东部的巴布亚新几内亚之间，是世界上生物多样性的热点地区之一，拥有令人难以置信的高水平生物多样性，其中许多是该地区独有的。这种特殊的生物多样性和地方性反映了数百万年来世界上地质最复杂和最活跃的地区之一的进化多样化和辐射。然而，该地区独特的生物多样性正受到气候变化、直接开发和栖息地破坏以及土地利用变化造成的破碎化的威胁。持续的栖息地丧失和碎片化预计会加速种群数量下降，增加灭绝率，还可能导致“反向物种形成”，即干扰将最近分化的物种推到一起，导致杂交增加、遗传同质化和物种崩溃。目前，大约有1300个印度尼西亚物种被列为濒临灭绝的物种，但该地区绝大多数物种的生物多样性尚未得到评估，我们缺乏关于许多物种的分布和多样化的基本信息，更不用说了解是什么过程推动了它们的多样化，它们将如何应对未来的环境变化。以及如何在平衡未来可持续发展需求的同时，尽量减少物种灭绝和遗传多样性的丧失。为了响应在未来环境变化和未来发展情景下减少Wallacea独特生物多样性损失的保护和管理策略的需求，我们将开发ForeWall，这是一个基于个体的遗传明确模型，用于研究该地区生物多样性的起源和未来。ForeWall将把最先进的生态进化模型与新的和现有的陆地和水生分类群的生态和进化数据结合起来，包括哺乳动物、爬行动物、两栖动物、淡水鱼、蜗牛、豆娘和土壤微生物，以提供对Wallacea特有生物多样性产生、多样化和持久的过程的新理解。通过对实证数据的测试和校准，我们将在多种环境变化和经济发展情景下预测一组分类群的生物多样性动态。我们将制定一套可行的生物多样性管理/缓解备选方案，以评估这些备选方案在保护整个区域的生态和进化模式和进程方面的有效性，使决策者能够在可持续发展期间尽量减少生物多样性的损失。因此，我们的项目不仅将提供地质和进化过程如何相互作用以产生这个生物多样性热点的新理解，而且还将为政策和决策者提供帮助保护它的工具和证据。

The Wallacea region, lying between the Borneo to the west and Papau New Guinea to the east, is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, hosting incredibly high levels of biodiversity, much of which is unique to the region. This exceptional level of biodiversity and endemism reflects evolutionary diversification and radiation over millions of years in one of the world's most geologically complex and active regions. The region's exceptional biodiversity, however, is threatened by climate change, direct exploitation and habitat destruction and fragmentation from land use change. Continued habitat loss and fragmentation is expected to precipitate population declines, increase extinction rates, and could also lead to 'reverse speciation' where disturbance pushes recently diverged species together, leading to increased hybridisation, genetic homogenisation, and species' collapse. Already, approximately 1,300 Indonesian species have been listed as at risk of extinction, but the vast majority of the region's biodiversity has not been assessed and we lack basic information on the distribution and diversification of many groups, let alone understanding of what processes drove their diversification, how they will respond to future environmental change, and how to minimize species' extinctions and losses of genetic diversity while balancing future sustainable development needs.In response to the need for conservation and management strategies to minimize the loss of Wallacea's unique biodiversity under future environmental change and future development scenarios, we will develop ForeWall, a genetically explicit individual-based model of the origin and future of the region's biodiversity. ForeWall will integrate state-of-the-art eco-evolutionary modelling with new and existing ecological and evolutionary data for terrestrial and aquatic taxa including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, freshwater fish, snails, damselflies and soil microbes, to deliver fresh understanding of the processes responsible for the generation, diversification, and persistence of Wallacea's endemic biodiversity. After testing and calibrating ForeWall against empirical data, we will forecast biodiversity dynamics across a suite of taxa under multiple environmental change and economic development scenarios. We will develop a set of alternative plausible biodiversity management/mitigation options to assess the effectiveness of these for preserving ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes across the region, allowing for policy-makers to minimise biodiversity losses during sustainable development. Our project will thus not only provide novel understanding of how geological and evolutionary processes have interacted to generate this biodiversity hotspot, but also provide policy- and decision-makers with tools and evidence to help preserve it.