DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Untangling history and ecology to reconstruct the assembly of an iconic avifauna

本研究将通过研究所罗门群岛鸟群的进化史和生态过程的作用，开发和测试一个概念框架，以理解混合物种鸟群的集合和物种组成。长期以来，所罗门群岛的鸟类一直是群落聚集理论发展的天然实验室。这项研究的结果将成为理解更复杂的自然系统的基础。通过了解社区聚集的历史，就有可能寻找这段历史对当代系统属性的影响。例如，如果物种进入群落的顺序会影响物种在群落中的功能角色，那么就有可能利用群落聚集史来预测当代系统的生态学。这种联系表明，群落的其他属性，如稳定性或抗灭绝性，可能受到聚集历史的影响。此外，这项研究将为当地社区提供国内培训的基础，以发展调查生物多样性所需的技能，建立对群岛多样性的全球意义的认识，将有助于为所罗门群岛量身定制越来越多的开放获取教育材料，并将培训纽约市地区的一名学生学习统计和形态学方法。为了重建所罗门群岛混合物种觅食群的组装历史，本研究将使用来自新鲜组织和古代DNA的超保守元素的下一代测序。历史生物地理学和人口学将用于揭示所罗门群岛形成混合物种群核心的六个鸟类谱系的殖民序列，祖先种群规模和种群之间的基因流动。这些数据将与形态学和生态学数据相关联，以检验当代形态学和生态学中存在的岛屿集合历史信号。虽然组装历史在生态时间尺度上可能是随机的，但在进化尺度上却具有一定程度的可预测性。这项研究将测试这些可预测的更大规模模式是否会影响群落的生态。最终，通过重建引导群落聚集的过程，不仅有可能开始描述生物群的历史，而且有可能根据历史重建对生态学做出预测。

This research will develop and test a conceptual framework for understanding the assembly, and species composition, of mixed-species flocks of birds by studying the roles of evolutionary history and ecological processes of flocks in the Solomon Islands. The birds of the Solomon Islands have long served as a natural laboratory for the development of community assembly theory. The results of this research will form the basis of understanding in more complex natural systems. By understanding community assembly history, it becomes possible to search for the effects of that history on attributes of contemporary systems. For example, if the order of species arrival into a community influences the functional roles of species in a community, it may be possible to use community assembly history to make predictions about the ecology of contemporary systems. Such a connection would suggest that other attributes of communities, such as stability or resistance to extinction, might be influenced by assembly history. Additionally, the research will form the basis of in-country training for local communities to develop skills necessary to survey biodiversity, build an appreciation for the global significance of the Archipelago's diversity, will contribute to a growing body of open access educational materials tailored to the Solomon Islands, and will train a student in the New York City area in statistical and morphological methods.In order to reconstruct the assembly history of mixed-species foraging flocks in the Solomon Archipelago, this research will use next generation sequencing of ultraconserved elements from fresh tissues and ancient DNA. Historical biogeography and demography will be used to reveal the sequence of colonization, ancestral population sizes, and gene flow between populations for six lineages of birds that form the nucleus of mixed-species flocks in the Solomon Islands. These data will be related to morphological and ecological data to test for the presence of a signal of island assembly history on contemporary morphology and ecology. While assembly history may appear stochastic at ecological timescales, it assumes a degree of predictability at evolutionary scales. This study will test whether these predictable larger scale patterns influence the ecology of communities. Ultimately, by reconstructing the processes that guide community assembly, it may not only be possible to begin to characterize the history of biotas, but potentially to make predictive statements about ecology based on historical reconstructions.