DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Historical and ecological causes of ant diversity along environmental gradients

生物多样性在地球上分布不均匀。 科学家们主要关注当前的气候条件作为多样性的主要驱动力，而进化过程的重要性则较少受到关注。拟议的研究项目旨在更好地了解进化历史在塑造北美蚂蚁多样性当前模式中的作用。分子信息的增加使得人们能够更清楚地了解蚂蚁物种之间的进化历史和关系。反过来，这些信息可以用来研究在地质时间尺度上种群的扩散和殖民历史。这项工作受益于一个大型的和新编译的数据库的分布和蚂蚁的多样性，以及最近出版的蚂蚁的遗传学的可用性，以获得新的见解的因素，蚂蚁多样性。拟议的工作需要与丹麦宏观生态中心（DCM）合作。 丹麦发展理事会与丹麦和国际非政府组织以及联合国/环境规划署和世界银行等组织合作。DCM的生态学家还担任丹麦议会关于生物多样性和气候变化问题的科学顾问。因此，拟议工作的结果将产生超出美国科学界的影响。

Biodiversity is distributed unevenly on the planet. Scientists have focused primarily on current climatic conditions as main drivers of diversity, while the importance of evolutionary processes has received less attention. The proposed research project aims to gain a better understanding of the role of evolutionary history in shaping current patterns of ant diversity in North America. The increased availability of molecular information allows a clearer understanding of evolutionary history and relationships among ant species. In turn this information can be used to examine the history of dispersal and colonization of populations over geological time scales. This work benefits from the availability of a large and newly compiled database on the distributions and diversity of ants, as well as the availability of a recently published phylogeny of ants, to gain new insights into the factors governing ant diversity. The proposed work entails collaboration with the Danish Center for Macroecology (DCM). The DCM is involved with Danish and International NGOs as well as with organizations such as UN/UNEP and the World Bank. Ecologists at the DCM also act as science advisors to the Danish parliament on issues relating to biodiversity and climate change. Therefore, the results of the proposed work will have impact beyond the scientific community in the US.