ADAPTIVEISLANDS · Evolutionary Island Biogeography: Origins and Maintenance of Fish Biodiversity in Marine Lakes
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2022-10-01 → 2024-09-30
- EU contribution
- €203,464
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Evolutionary Island Biogeography: Origins and Maintenance of Fish Biodiversity in Marine Lakes
ADAPTIVEISLANDS: Evolutionary Island Biogeography: Origins and Maintenance of Fish Biodiversity in Marine Lakes Why do some islands host unique species while others do not? How do species adapt to isolation over time? The ADAPTIVEISLANDS project explores these fundamental questions by testing Evolutionary Island Biogeography in a natural experiment: the marine lakes of Raja Ampat, Indonesia. These isolated pockets of seawater, connected to the ocean through cracks and tunnels, create a real-world laboratory for studying how species colonize, persist, and adapt in isolated environments. ADAPTIVEISLANDS focuses on three key questions: How does isolation shape biodiversity? We compiled a database of fish diversity in marine lakes to study how sea connectivity and species dispersal traits affect fish community diversity. How does isolation impact colonization and extinction? We are working on reconstructing the historical colonization-extinction dynamics of two fish species, which differ in their ability to disperse, using sediment cores. How does isolation drive adaptation? By studying fish populations in lakes with varying levels of connectivity (low, medium, high), we are exploring how species adapt to challenging environmental conditions, such as differences in salinity and temperature. By integrating fieldwork, genetics, and ecological modeling, ADAPTIVEISLANDS provides new insights into the evolutionary and ecological processes shaping biodiversity in fragmented habitats. These findings will help inform marine conservation strategies, particularly in environments vulnerable to climate change and human impact. This research aims to bridge the gap between classical island biogeography and evolutionary processes, advancing our understanding of how colonization, extinction, and adaptation interact to drive biodiversity.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
For over 150 years, insular environments have played a key role in biological research, as they provide an explicit spatial and temporal context in which to study the processes behind biodiversity. Traditionally, the origin and maintenance of biodiversity in islands has been studied from the ecological aspects of biogeography such as immigration, colonization and extinction, while microevolutionary processes such as adaptation were ignored. Biodiversity in islands depends not only on colonization, but also on the successful establishment via biological adaptations, and on speciation. The integration of microevolution with Island Biogeography Theory (IBT) is a crucial next step. Here I propose to use marine lakes –islands of seawater surrounded by land– to shed light on the origin and maintenance of fish biodiversity by understanding the interaction between colonization, extinction and adaptation. To achieve this, I will compare marine lakes of similar ages, sizes and environmental conditions, but differing in the level of isolation to the sea, in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. First, I will examine how isolation and fish dispersal-related traits affect species diversity and composition in marine lakes. I will document marine lakes biodiversity patterns using video camera recordings and I will collate information on traits from public data repositories. Second, I will test how isolation affects colonization and extinction by documenting historic colonization-extinction dynamics (750 years before the present) using eDNA from sediment cores. Finally, I will test how isolation affects local adaptation by examining signatures of adaptation in marine lakes with different levels of connectivity to the sea using population genetics. This unique combination of study system, data, and novel analyses to integrate microevolution with IBT, will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the process responsible for the origin and maintenance of biodiversity.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY · WageningenCoordinatorNetherlands
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101061723
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e514594461&appId=PPGMS
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5f95b57d2&appId=PPGMS
Data: CORDIS, © European Union