DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Evolutionary Diversification and Community Assembly in Melanesian Forest Frogs: Testing the Hypothesis of Replicated Adaptive Radiation

了解产生和调节生物多样性模式的机制可以为生物群落如何在不同的时间尺度上聚集和多样化提供广泛的见解。进化过程对于在孤立岛屿系统中产生生物多样性的重要性是有据可查的。然而，问题仍然存在：在岛屿生物群落的组装过程中，物种形成和适应等过程能否导致可预测的结果？这项研究旨在通过研究西南太平洋美拉尼西亚群岛青蛙多样性的模式来解决这个问题。美拉尼西亚林蛙为研究多样化的适应过程提供了一个理想的系统，因为它们分布在多个岛链上，并表现出一组类似的栖息地专家(生态型)，这是每个岛群独一无二的。这项研究将检验这样一种假设，即这些生态上相似的青蛙群落在每个群岛中独立进化，导致整个物种群落的趋同。该项目将记录一个值得注意的汇聚进化的案例，这可能会提供与世界各地生物群落的进化和组装有关的额外证据。这项研究的一部分还将包括科学方面的高级本科生指导，包括基因组序列捕获数据的收集和分析。此外，这个项目的结果将被整合到一个课堂学习模块中，旨在向堪萨斯州的高中生传授进化概念。这项研究的一个主要目标是使用外显子捕获测序的方法来解决Cornufer属美拉尼西亚森林蛙之间的进化关系。系统基因组学数据将与整个美拉尼西亚群岛所有物种的形态和生态数据相结合，以测试(1)青蛙生态形态群落是通过独立的适应性辐射在每个群岛进化的，(2)生态形态只进化一次，然后分散在群岛上，或者(3)两者兼而有之。然后将使用宏观进化模型来评估每个群岛的蛙类群落在生态形态上是否或多或少像偶然预期的那样收敛，这可能表明美拉尼西亚林蛙的适应性多样化和群落组装一直是非随机的。这项研究将促进另一种丰富的、多方面的自适应辐射模型体系的发展，以用于生物多样性和群落组装过程的各种概念进化研究。

Understanding the mechanisms that generate and regulate biodiversity patterns can provide broad insights into how biological communities assemble and diversify over different timescales. The importance of evolutionary processes for the generation of biodiversity in isolated island systems is well documented. However, the question remains: can processes like speciation and adaptation lead to predictable outcomes during the assembly of biological communities on islands? This study aims to address this question by examining patterns of frog diversity in the Melanesian island archipelagos of the Southwest Pacific. Melanesian forest frogs provide an ideal system to study adaptive processes of diversification because they are distributed across multiple island chains and exhibit a similar set of habitat specialists (ecomorphs), which are unique to each island group. This study will test the hypothesis that these ecologically similar frog communities evolved independently in each archipelago, resulting in the convergence of entire species communities. This project will document a remarkable case of convergent evolution that could provide additional evidence bearing on the evolution and assembly of biological communities worldwide. Portions of this research will also include advanced undergraduate mentoring in science, including genomic sequence capture data collection and analysis. Additionally, the results of this project will be integrated into a classroom learning module geared toward teaching evolutionary concepts to Kansas high school students.A major goal of this study is to resolve the evolutionary relationships among Melanesian Forest Frogs of the genus Cornufer using an exon capture sequencing approach. Phylogenomic data will be integrated with morphometric and ecological data from all species throughout the Melanesian archipelagos to test whether (1) frog ecomorph communities evolved in each archipelago through independent adaptive radiations, (2) ecomorphs evolved only once and subsequently dispersed across archipelagos, or (3) a combination of both. Macroevolutionary models will then be used to evaluate whether frog communities in each archipelago are more or less ecomorphologically convergent that expected by chance, which may suggest that adaptive diversification and community assembly has been nonrandom in Melanesian Forest Frogs. This study will promote the development of another rich, multi-faceted model system of adaptive radiation for a variety of conceptual evolutionary studies on the process of biological diversification and community assembly.