New lab member for EXEB: Alice Evans

Alice Evans  started last week as a new Masters student at the lab and will be working on the genetics of the colour polymorphism of the blue tailed damselfly Ischnura elegans under the supervision of Maren Wellenreuther and Elin Videvall.

Below you can find a photo of the study species and Alice, and a description by Alice of her project.

 

Research Interests

I am broadly interested in all topics of molecular ecology, but particularly in conservation genetics, evolution and population genetics. I am currently undertaking a project on the genetics of colour polymorphism, using the damselfly Ischnura elegans as a model organism. I hope to isolate the gene region associated with colour polymorphism, and analyse the statistical differences between the three allele pools of different colour morphs, to improve our understanding of this phenomena in a mostly genetically unstudied organism.

Publication

Graeme R. Gillespie, Eddie Ahmad, Berjaya Elahan, Alice Evans, Marc Ancrenaz,
Benoit Goossens, Michael P. Scroggie. Conservation of amphibians in Borneo: Relative value of secondary tropical forest and non-forest habitats. 2012. Biological Conservation.

Updated information about lab-meeting on April 9: ERC, phylogenies and tropical diversification

This is an update about the coming lab-meeting on Tuesday April (10.30), as there was some mis-communication, and it turns out Lesley will not be able to attend the meeting due to a course in landscape genetics, and this is probably also the case for Rachel and Maren. The lab-meeting on Tuesday will start with  Jessica presenting her ERC-talk for the coming interview in Brussels, and she can then get final feedback from the lab-members that attend. Our new student Anais from Cataluna has also promised to bring some catalunian "fika", and we can try out the red wine she brought last week.

Then, we should discuss this paper that I originally suggested which deals with how the use of multiple phylogenies can be used to answer basic ecological and evolutionary questions about the niche conservatism and range expansions and test the classical "tropical conservatism" hypothesis. This paper is in press in Evolution, and is quite long, but in case you have time you can also read the shorter paper Lesley suggested that was published in Ecology Letters. 

Both these papers are thematically similar and demonstrate the power of a phylogenetic perspective and modern comparative methods to address fundamental problems and general processes in ecology and evolution. The titles and abstracts of both papers are posted below. Enjoy!

WHAT CAN MULTIPLE PHYLOGENIES SAY ABOUT THE LATITUDINAL DIVERSITY GRADIENT? A NEW LOOK AT THE TROPICAL CONSERVATISM, OUT OF THE TROPICS, AND DIVERSIFICATION RATE HYPOTHESES

1. Roland Jansson, 
2. Genoveva Rodríguez-Castañeda, 
3. Larisa E. Harding

We reviewed published phylogenies and selected 111 phylogenetic studies representing mammals, birds, insects, and flowering plants. We then mapped the latitudinal range of all taxa to test the relative importance of the tropical conservatism, out of the tropics, and diversification rate hypotheses in generating latitudinal diversity gradients. Most clades originated in the tropics, with diversity peaking in the zone of origin. Transitions of lineages between latitudinal zones occurred at 16–22% of the tree nodes. The most common type of transition was range expansions of tropical lineages to encompass also temperate latitudes. Thus, adaptation to new climatic conditions may not represent a major obstacle for many clades. These results contradict predictions of the tropical conservatism hypothesis (i.e., few clades colonizing extratropical latitudes), but support the out-of-the-tropics model (i.e., tropical originations and subsequent latitudinal range expansions). Our results suggest no difference in diversification between tropical and temperate sister lineages; thus, diversity of tropical clades was not explained by higher diversification rates in this zone. Moreover, lineages with latitudinal stasis diversified more compared to sister lineages entering a new latitudinal zone. This preserved preexisting diversity differences between latitudinal zones and can be considered a new mechanism for why diversity tends to peak in the zone of origin.

Species interactions constrain geographic range expansion over evolutionary time

Alex L. Pigot^*, 

Joseph A. Tobias

Whether biotic interactions limit geographic ranges has long been controversial, and traditional analyses of static distribution patterns have made little progress towards resolving this debate. Here, we use a novel phylogenetic approach to test whether biotic interactions constrain the transition to secondary sympatry following speciation. Applying this temporal framework to a diverse clade of passerine birds (Furnariidae), we reject models of geographic range overlap limited purely by dispersal or environmental constraints, and instead show that rates of secondary sympatry are positively associated with both the phylogenetic and morphological distance between species. Thus, transition rates to sympatry increase with time since divergence and accelerate as the ecological differences between species accumulate. Taken together, these results provide strong empirical evidence that biotic interactions – and primarily ecological competition – limit species distributions across large spatial and temporal scales. They also offer phylogenetic and trait-based metrics by which these interactions can be incorporated into ecological forecasting models.

Lab meeting: speciation and secondary sympatry

For next week's lab meeting (April 9 @ 10:30), let's read an interesting, new-ish paper by Alex Pigot and Joseph Tobias from Ecology Letters, showing that secondary sympatry of closely related species is limited by divergence time (with more recently separated species less likely to overlap geographically). This paper provides good evidence that competition limits geographic ranges, and should provide some interesting fuel for discussion in light of sympatric damselflies that have been studied in our lab.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it to the discussion, as I will be attending Bengt Hansson's landscape genetics course (co-taught by fellow lab members Maren Wellenreuther and Rachel Dudaniec!), but I can still provide fika and some discussion points.

The title/ abstract and link to the article are as follows:

Species interactions constrain geographic range expansion over evolutionary time

Abstract

Whether biotic interactions limit geographic ranges has long been controversial, and traditional analyses of static distribution patterns have made little progress towards resolving this debate. Here, we use a novel phylogenetic approach to test whether biotic interactions constrain the transition to secondary sympatry following speciation. Applying this temporal framework to a diverse clade of passerine birds (Furnariidae), we reject models of geographic range overlap limited purely by dispersal or environmental constraints, and instead show that rates of secondary sympatry are positively associated with both the phylogenetic and morphological distance between species. Thus, transition rates to sympatry increase with time since divergence and accelerate as the ecological differences between species accumulate. Taken together, these results provide strong empirical evidence that biotic interactions – and primarily ecological competition – limit species distributions across large spatial and temporal scales. They also offer phylogenetic and trait-based metrics by which these interactions can be incorporated into ecological forecasting models.

Travel trip report and slide show from South Africa followed by "Evolutionary Biology for the 21th century"

Navy dropwing (Trithemis furva). Photo: Erik Svensson

Posted by Erik Svensson

During the lab-meeting next week (Tuesday April 2), I will show some nature pictures from our recent research and field work trip to eastern South Africa (from the provinces of KwaZulu Natal, Mupalanga and Limpopo) that I recently did with Anna Nordén, John Waller and Johannis Danielsen. 



After that, we will discuss a recent essay in PLoS Biology, entitled "Evolutionary Biology for the 21th Century", authored by Losos et al. This paper is published "Open Acess", and can be accessed here.

This thought-provoking essay should be an must-read for anyone interested in the future of the general research field of evolutionary biology. The paper has already sparked some interest in the bloggosphere, such as here and here. Of particular interest is their coining of a new term - "Biodiversity informatics", and what it might entail.

The more general questions, I think, are these: are the authors likely to be correct in their predictions about the future of our field, and if not, what have they missed? And where are we in this picture in our research group in relation to the rest of the evolutionary biology research community? How could we contribute?

Time: Tuesday April 2, 10.30
Place: "Argumentet", 2nd floor (Ecology Building)

Final reminder to Anna and John: could you bring fika? Also, send some of your best pictures to me well before Tuesday, so I can put them together in to our slide show.

Next lab meeting: cognitive abilities in birds

Posted by Jessica Abbott on behalf of Utku Urhan

 

Hi Everyone,

This week i have picked 2 articles about great tits and their cognitive abilities. Papers discuss individual variations and if having high cognitive abilities advantageous in every situation. I hope you will enjoy reading them. See you on Tuesday. I will bring fika.

Cognitive Ability Influences Reproductive Life History Variation in the Wild

Summary

Cognition has been studied intensively for several decades, but the evolutionary processes that shape individual variation in cognitive traits remain elusive. For instance, the strength of selection on a cognitive trait has never been estimated in a natural population, and the possibility that positive links with life history variation are mitigated by costs or confounded by ecological factors remains unexplored in the wild. We assessed novel problem-solving performance in 468 wild great tits Parus major temporarily taken into captivity and subsequently followed up their reproductive performance in the wild. Problem-solver females produced larger clutches than nonsolvers. This benefit did not arise because solvers timed their breeding better, occupied better habitats, or compromised offspring quality or their own survival. Instead, foraging range size and day length were relatively small and short, respectively, for solvers, suggesting that they were more efficient at exploiting their environment. In contaast to the positive effect on clutch size, problem solvers deserted their nests more often, leading to little or no overall selection on problem-solving performance. Our results are

consistent with the idea that variation in cognitive ability is shaped by contrasting effects on different life history traits directly linked to fitness.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982212008767

Personality and problem-solving performance explain competitive ability in the wild

 

Abstract:Competitive ability is a major determinant of fitness, but why individuals vary so much in their competitiveness ! remains only partially understood. One increasingly prevalent view is that realized competitive ability varies because it represents alternative strategies that arise because of the costs associated with competitiveness. Here we use a population of great tits (Parus major) to explore whether individual differences incompetitive ability when foraging can be explained by two traits that have previously been linked to alternative behavioural strategies: the personality trait 'exploration behaviour' and a simple cognitive trait, 'innovative problem-solving performance'. We assayed these traits under standardized conditions in captivity and then measuredcompetitive ability at feeders with restricted access in the wild. Competitive ability was repeatable within individual males across days and correlated positively with exploration behaviour, representing the first such demonstration of a link between apersonality trait and both competitive ability and food intake in the wild. Competitiveability was also simultaneously negatively correlated with problem-solving performance; individuals who were poor competitors were good at problem-solving. Rather than being the result of variation in 'individual quality', our results support the hypothesis that individual variation in competitive ability can be explained by alte! rnative behavioural strategies.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1731/1168

Next lab meeting: WIPs and paper on sex role evolution

 

The African Jacana, a sex-role reversed bird

Hello everyone, this is Qinyang and for our next lab meeting, I picked the recently published paper on sex-role reversal among several shorebird species. They tested the recent theory and confirmed that adult sex ratio indeed play an essential role in shorebirds' parenting and mating systems.

 

Title:The evolution of sex roles in birds is related to adult sex ratio

Abstract: Sex-role reversal represents a formidable challenge for evolutionary biologists, since it is not clear which ecological, life-history or social factors facilitated conventional sex roles (female care and male-male competition for mates) to be reversed (male care and female-female competition). Classic theories suggested ecological or life-history predictors of role reversal, but most studies failed to support these hypotheses. Recent theory however predicts that sex-role reversal should be driven by male-biased adult sex ratio (ASR). Here we test this prediction for the first time using phylogenetic comparative analyses. Consistent with theory, both mating system and parental care are strongly related to ASR in shorebirds: conventional sex roles are exhibited by species with female-biased ASR, whereas sex-role reversal is associated with male-biased ASR. These results suggest that social environment has a strong influence on breeding systems and therefore revealing the causes of ASR variation in wild populations is essential for understanding sex role evolution.

  

Before the discussion of the paper, I’d like to use this opportunity to present the work I’ve been doing so far in testing heritability of the wing interference pattern of Drosophila Melanogaster, as well as some problems occurred. It would really help me to hear your advices. I’ll bring fika.

Time: Tuesday, Mar/19, 10:30am. 

Qinyang

Yuma's new life in Japan

Posted by Jessica Abbott

Yuma, Natsu, Jessica, and Jostein in the lab

Yuma Takahashi, Erik's former postdoc, recently sent some of us an email about his return to Japan.  Since I thought there might be other people who would like to know how things are going for him, I asked him if I could post his message here, which he kindly agreed to.  From Yuma:

"Hej,

I have successfully started new life in Sendai, Japan in which my home university is.
I had a lovely and wonderful time with you in Lund!
Everything is fine there. People, university, lab, city, architecture, weather, (winter), summer and so on...
I wanted to stay there as long as possible.

Just now, I am enjoying tea, Lunda blandning, with Höganäs tea cup! I can easily imagine the view of Lund, ekologihuset and you all.

Good News!
I got a new job, an assistant professor in Tohoku University, to which I applied with Erik's letter.
I can continue research life 5 more years (min: 1 year, MAX: 5 years)! It will start from this April.

I am planning to visit to Lund during a field season in 2014 or 2015. I am happy if I can join you again!

When you visit to Japan, please contact me!
I and Natsu can guide you. Remember that Japan is longer country than you (especially Erik) expected. South to North distance of Japan is same as that of US!

See you in Portugal.

Cheers,

Yuma"


I'm sure we're all happy to hear that things are going well for Yuma, and congratulations from EXEB on his new job!