The use of comparative phylogeographic and ecologic modeling to disentangle interacting evolutionary processes in contrasting clades: the example of Malagasy mouse lemurs (Microcebus) and woolly lemurs (Avahi)

确定物种形成的驱动因素及其相对重要性是理解物种多样化和分布的关键。这些驱动因素包括大规模的地貌过程，如山脉和河流的形成，以及小规模的机制，如种内生态可塑性，栖息地选择或殖民潜力。虽然物种多样性很可能是物种形成驱动因素之间复杂相互作用的结果，但由于缺乏适当的模式物种和区域，很少以综合方式对这些因素进行研究。在这个仍在进行的DFG资助的项目中，我们调查和采样的鼠和毛狐猴属和Avahi在一个地区，包括多个河流系统在马达加斯加东北部。这两个属在大小、生态和物种多样性模式上有显著差异，并形成了研究各种物种形成驱动因素的重要性和相互作用的理想模型。在持续的资助期间，我们正在利用河流流域的地貌重建和一些第一次基于RADseq的基因组分析，以建立物种多样性和分布的这些夜行狐猴类群在研究区域，并评估一些选定的物种的影响河流，海拔和古气候振荡的遗传结构。然而，由于实地工作出现不可预见和与COVID相关的1年延迟，该项目不可能在第一个供资期内全面完成。因此，我们将需要这1年的延长，以确定这些因素的作用和相互作用，并将它们与新的建模结果的所有物种的生态可塑性和可靠的推断的时间背景下的基因流在整个研究区域的全面重建的多样化过程中的两个属。与以前的研究结果一起，这些分析将描绘一个全面的图片狐猴物种在研究区域，并确定它是如何不同的外部和内在因素的相互作用，在生态对比小鼠和羊毛狐猴的形状。此外，我们的研究结果将为保护利益相关者和政策制定者提供指导方针，以便做出明智的保护决策。

Identifying drivers of speciation and their relative importance is key to understanding the diversification and distribution of species. These drivers range from large-scale geomorphological processes such as mountain and river formation to small-scale mechanisms like intra-specific ecological plasticity, habitat choice, or colonization potential. Although species diversity is likely the result of complex interactions among speciation drivers, these have only rarely been studied in an integrative way due to the lack of appropriate model species and regions. In this still ongoing DFG-funded project, we surveyed and sampled mouse and woolly lemurs of the genera Microcebus and Avahi in a region encompassing multiple inter-river-systems in northeastern Madagascar. Both genera differ significantly in size, ecology and patterns of species diversity, and form ideal models to study the importance and interaction of various drivers of speciation. Within the ongoing funding period we are making use of geomorphological reconstructions of river basins and some first RADseq-based genomic analyses in order to establish the species diversity and distribution of these nocturnal lemur taxa in the study region and to assess for some selected species the effects of rivers, altitude, and paleoclimatic oscillations on genetic structure. However, the full completion of the project will not be possible within the first funding period due to an unforeseeable and COVID-related 1-year delay in field work. Therefore, we will need this 1-year extension to determine the role and interaction of these factors and integrate them with new modelling results on the ecological plasticity of all species and a reliable inference of the temporal context of gene flow across the study region for a full reconstruction of the diversification processes in both genera. Together with previous findings, these analyses will paint a comprehensive picture of lemur speciation in the study region and identify how it was differentially shaped by the interaction of extrinsic and intrinsic factors in the ecologically contrasting mouse and woolly lemurs. In addition, our findings will provide guidelines for conservation stakeholders and policy makers for informed conservation decisions.