A large majority (~85%) of the Associate Editors at the Journal of Biogeography (JBI) is participating in a work stoppage, beginning immediately (29th June 2023) because of an unresolved dispute with the journal’s publisher, Wiley.
Their concerns center on inequity in Open Access publication models, unrealistic targets for growth, increasing emphasis on transferring rejected manuscripts to ‘cascade’ journals, and related matters. Their statement is provided in full below.
The Associate Editors’ action amplifies issues raised recently by the Editor-in-Chief, who has resigned because Wiley refused to discuss the editorial board’s concerns.
The concerns raised by the Associate Editors affect all publishing scientists, and have outsized impacts on the least resourced. The senior editorial team of JBI respects the individual circumstances of all Associate Editors at the journal — who have worked diligently without recompense for the benefit of the scientific community — and their decisions to participate or not in the work stoppage. They do not take this action lightly.
We apologize that authors submitting new manuscripts to the journal during the work stoppage should anticipate delays in handling of their submissions.
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Michael Dawson Chief Editor, Journal of Biogeography University of California-Merced
Margaret Donnelly Journal Manager, Journal of Biogeography Wiley Publishers
28 June 2023
Dear Dr. Dawson and Ms. Donnelly:
We are writing to inform you that we, as Associate Editors of the Journal of Biogeography (JBI), are currently unwilling to handle any new JBI manuscripts, due to a difference of opinion on the following issues:
The full Open Access model: We do not support the switch to fully open access, because this disadvantages researchers that are unable to afford to publish their work using the pay-to-publish business model. This publishing model severely hampers the research visibility of early career researchers and those in countries with low to middle economies who cannot afford the OA fees. At the same time, this system promotes the visibility of those researchers with ample funds to pay to publish and allows unfair free access to their content. This creates a system where those that have funds will always become more cited than those that do not have funds to pay for their work to be visible.
The proposed increase in throughput for the journal: This proposed change appears to be an attempt at maximising business profits, at the expense of AE’s time spent processing additional outputs and with a potential negative impact to real or perceived article quality. As Associate Editors, we would like to remind the publisher that we work gratis, for the good of the community. Our free time spent in professional service through editing for JBI is not intended to be used to maximise profit.
Automatic referral to other Wiley journals: We are firmly against this option, because it takes away author choice and editorial discretion. The authors are providing their content for free to Wiley, and therefore the choice is entirely theirs as to which outlet they prefer their work to be published in. As editors, we are often able to suggest more appropriate journal outlets for particular manuscripts, and these outlets may or may not be in the Wiley family of journals. Again, our service is given to the field of biogeography, and not to Wiley itself.
We are aware that Wiley has not been willing to compromise on any of these topics, and therefore we are currently under a work stoppage as AEs. From June 28, we will not accept any editorial duties for new manuscripts. So that this action does not impede our colleagues with submitted manuscripts, we will continue to handle manuscripts that are already out for review or in revision.
We are willing to reconsider our position at such time that Wiley takes on board the grievances listed above, and we come to a compromise. We propose a deadline of July 31 for resolution of these matters, after which time we will be willing to resume AE duties. We are also ready to resign our positions if no compromise can be reached. Please note that as Associate Editors, we work without any remuneration or compensation, and our ultimate goal is to advance the field of biogeography by supporting high-quality, peer-reviewed, cutting-edge research. The Journal of Biogeography has a proud history as a thought leader in our discipline, and we are firmly against any development of a business model that maximises profit but places in jeopardy the academic quality of the Journal of Biogeography.
Arlo Hinckley is a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Universidad de Sevilla. He is an evolutionary biologist with a focus on the origin, maintenance, and distribution of mammalian diversity. Here, Arlo shares his recent work on the evolutionary history and divergence patterns of Asian squirrels.
Picture of Arlo Hinckley taken at his office, at the Mammals Division of the National Museum of Natural History.
Institute. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History & Universidad de Sevilla
Academic life stage. Postdoc
Major research themes. I am primarily interested in the study of the evolutionary origin, maintenance, and distribution of mammalian diversity in Tropical East Asia (TEA).
Current study system. TEA is a major biodiversity hotspot with a complex geography, and geological and climatic history, providing an excellent system to study evolution. Despite recent advances, the underlying evolutionary mechanisms driving this region’s high levels of biodiversity are still poorly understood. To gain insights into such drivers, I reconstruct the evolutionary history of small mammals (rodents, eulipotyphlans, and treeshrews). These taxa can be locally abundant, highly diverse, have short generation times and are frequently habitat specialists with low dispersal abilities. Their sensitivity to environmental change and low dispersal abilities makes them great models to evaluate how past and present climatic and geological events shape speciation processes and biogeographic patterns, while their fast generation times generally makes these inferences informative even at short timescales. I however do not consider small mammals’ mere models, I am genuinely interested in their systematics, ecology, and conservation, and love sampling them in the field.
Recent JBIpaper. Hinckley, A., Hawkins, M. T., Maldonado, J. E., & Leonard, J. A. (2023). Evolutionary history and patterns of divergence in three tropical east Asian squirrels across the Isthmus of Kra. Journal of Biogeography, 50(6), 1090-1102. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14598
The Himalayan Striped Squirrel (Tamiops mcclellandii) is a largely insectivorous and strictly arboreal squirrel lives on the trunks and main branches of tall trees and has a wide distribution range that spans the Isthmus of Kra biogeographic transition. Photo Credit: Andaman Kaosung. Location: Kaeng Krachan District, Thailand.
Motivation behind this paper. Understanding the biotic and abiotic mechanisms underlying the generation and maintenance of biogeographic transitions represents a long-standing topic in evolutionary biology. Biogeographic transition is the gradual change in species distribution due to climate, geology, and even human activities, resulting in ecosystem and biodiversity shifts. The Isthmus of Kra (IOK) is a terrestrial biogeographic transition in the Thai-Malay peninsula, which divides Sundaland and Indochina. Despite intriguing biogeographers since Alfred R. Wallace first noted it in 1876, the IOK still constitutes a poorly characterized biogeographic transition. This is possibly due to challenges associated with sampling across such a large and geographically (and politically) complex region as TEA, but also due to a scarcity of species with distributions spanning this region, and a lack of appropriate molecular markers and/or fossil calibrations for divergence dating. This is why my co-authors and I decided to focus on three squirrel species that are distributed across the IOK, belonging to a subfamily for which we had already developed a panel of genetic markers and that has several fossils. This allowed us to look at population structure across the IOK and the drivers that have shaped this transition and regional diversification patterns by integrating divergence dating analyses with geological and paleoclimatic evidence.
Key methodologies. We generated complete mitochondrial genomes and sequences of eleven nuclear genes fragments from museum specimen samples. We studied how different populations are connected by looking at their genetic information from mitochondrial DNA and other molecular markers. We used advanced methods to estimate when these populations started to evolve separately, considering the influence of climate and geological changes over time. This research was possible thanks to the work of historical naturalists, in combination with the recent advances in high throughput sequencing, which allowed us to yield the molecular data this study was based on. I expect museum genomics to revolutionize the field of historical biogeography, since researchers can now sample very large/remote regions with much less time/funding investment. Still, field surveys and specimen collection will remain pivotal to fill geographical gaps, complement museum-based data, and to support future research with new methodological approaches that still do not exist. Just as the historical collectors I mentioned did not collect our study specimens for the purpose of this research, who knows what information researchers will extract from museum specimens in 50 years!
The Gray-bellied Squirrel (Callosciurus caniceps) is an omnivorous, mostly arboreal species that lives in the understory and has a wide distribution range that spans the Isthmus of Kra biogeographic transition. Photo Credit: Jan Ebr. Location: Pahang, Malaysia.
Unexpected challenges. Working with highly degraded DNA from historic museum specimens can be challenging. Requesting destructive sampling tissue loans to 17 museums, along with marker development (intron multiplexes), was highly time-consuming. Furthermore, the lab work had a high degree of uncertainty, as 45% of the samples did not work (possibly due to exposure to formalin or other chemicals). Consequently, we ended up requesting and processing many more samples than what we initially planned to fill certain geographic gaps. Our observations suggest that specimen preparation and storage by the historic collectors might have a greater impact on DNA quality than either their age or the museum where they have been curated. Based on our experience, I would suggest researchers planning a project involving historic DNA to perform target capture (if they can afford it) and target study taxa that have specimens stored in a handful of museums to reduce delays and third-party dependency. If possible, they should also sample specimens collected in expeditions which have yielded molecular data in previous studies on other taxa.
Major results. Populations distributed across the IOK diverged during the Early Pleistocene in all three species, but the precise location of lineage turnovers varied among species. Sundaic and Indochinese populations possibly diverged in allopatric habitat refugia in or around mountains during periods of increased aridity and evergreen forest contraction. Ecological differences and/or topography might have influenced genetic differentiation during periods of rainforest expansion. However, alternative hypotheses remain to be tested with more informative nuclear markers and additional geographic sampling. Finally, two of the study species were paraphyletic and showed ancient Miocene-Pliocene divergences across Indochina. Overall, this research contributes to a better understanding of the evolutionary processes shaping Southeast Asia’s biodiversity, given the robustness and precision that mitochondrial genome and/or nuclear multi-locus datasets provide, its broad geographic scope, and the current shortfall regarding divergence dating studies in this area.
Montane forest of Tropical East Asia. Photo Credit: Daniel Hinckley. Location: Mount Trus Madi, Sabah, Malaysia.
Next steps for this research. We are currently reassessing the taxonomy of these three squirrels through an integrative approach, which includes additional lines of evidence such as morphology. We also look forward to addressing this research hypothesis with phylogenomic evidence and the inclusion of additional taxa with diverse ecological requirements. The combination of improved sampling around the Isthmus of Kra, requiring additional fieldwork, and population genomic approaches, will open the door to exploring potential hybrid/introgression zones in this transition zone. Niche modelling, in combination with population genetic studies, including historic and modern populations, will be pivotal to predicting and tracking potential climate change-driven shifts in the distribution of mammals in this biogeographic transition.
If you could study any organism on Earth, what would it be? One of the best things about working in the largest mammal collection in the world is that you can study almost any species you are interested in, which can sometimes be problematic, since you end up starting too many projects that you must finish. I am currently studying Oriental Giant Squirrels (Ratufa) which I had been longing to work with since I saw them in the field eight years ago. They are highly elusive and understudied taxa due to their canopy-dwelling nature, which makes field sampling highly challenging. The NMNH collection holds specimens from all recognized species and most subspecies of Ratufa, providing a unique opportunity to reconstruct its historical biogeography, integratively review taxonomy, and test the hypothesis that differences in the resilience to forest seasonality of two of its species will be reflected in contrasting evolutionary histories.
Anything else to add? Our research highlights the important role that Tropical East Asian mountains play as forest refugia during the current and future climate-change driven aridification and the necessity to conserve them for the generation and maintenance of this region’s biodiversity in the long term.
Pictures highlighting the logistics, camp/sampling sites, live traps, small mammal sampling, and participants of a biological survey in northern Borneo. Photo Credit: Daniel Hinckley and Arlo Hinckley.
After almost four years as Editor-in-Chief with the Journal of Biogeography, I have decided to step down. For the most part, these have been four productive years. We did a lot (see “accomplishments” below), working with a truly tremendous team of editors, and good support at the time from our colleagues at Wiley. But there is still much more to do. The challenge (see “challenge” below) — and ultimately the reason why I decided to step down — has been that changes at Wiley mean it is becoming harder to do the new stuff we felt as an editorial team that we needed to do, to support authors, to help effect real change and make step advances in the discipline. But it is becoming increasingly hard to stave off the undesirable consequences of the primary motivations of the the for-profit scientific publishing industry.
Our accomplishments since fall 2019. In no particular order, we: – introduced a new article type (Letters) for short influential reports – introduced ‘fast-track’ review, i.e. considering reviews and editorial decisions from prior journals to speed decisions and reduce editor and reviewer burden – likewise made permission for sharing Journal of Biogeography‘s editorial decisions and reviews with other journals the default if authors wished to try fast-track submission elsewhere – published special issues on Macroecology in the Age of Big Data and on Geogenomics – published a virtual issue on Women in Biogeography and on Global Biogeography – kicked off the 50th Anniversary year with virtual collections of the most cited articles of the past 50 years (vol_1, vol_2) – established the Journal of Biogeography Innovation Awards, winners of which can be read at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2699.Innovation-Awards
We also invested in our community. We: – started the Editorial Academy (2020, 2021), – began reporting on our diversity achievements and goals, – started a fund for biogeographers from under-represented regions in honor of the late Judith Masters, and – introduced small grants for global colloquia, of which we have funded two so far: one on Rethinking Dispersal-related Traits and another on The Biogeography of the Carpathians.
And we tried to be more connected, doing a better job of communicating biogeography, and providing a little added value: – re-introduced author’s imagery on the front cover to highlight intriguing articles in each issue, these cover articles were made free to read (for two years), – all Editors’ Choice articles also were made free to read (for two years), – started this blog, and facebook and instagram accounts, and grew our presence on twitter, all run by our new and very capable social media editors and featuring primarily early career researchers.
In the next issue, we look forward to building on these accomplishments, introducing two new special sections – Reshaping Biogeography, a suite of papers reflecting on the advances in and the future of biogeography, and – Global Biogeography, to begin to address global issues of inclusion that will improve the discipline.
In addition, we kept the fundamentals going: we published over 200 articles per year, solicited high quality reviews, updated our scope, and increased the journal’s impact factor. We completed the transition started years before that every article required data to be deposited in an open repository before publication. And we also required every article to make a statement about permits in a more explicit attempt to support the Nagoya protocol.
Challenges ahead
In light of all those achievements, it might seem odd that I have decided to step down from the Journal of Biogeography (JBI). Why the change of mind?
I joined JBI after a long stint as deputy editor-in-chief at Frontiers of Biogeography, a society journal published by eScholarship with very low article processing charges. In many ways, it represents the best of scientific publishing. Coming from that background, the challenge joining Journal of Biogeography was, in part, to see whether we could work with new partners in Wiley to make big publishing a better place for biogeographers. Remember, the furore at Diversity and Distributions was still fresh in everyone’s minds. Perhaps I was naïve, but as mentioned above, we have done some good things at the journal over the years. However, recently, the orientation of Wiley to the journal became less collaborative and seemed to emphasize cost-cutting and margins over good editorial practice, a robustly supported journal, and accessibility for all biogeographers.
My main concerns were (and are) that Wiley is no longer willing to even try to explore productive solutions to a suite of current or upcoming challenges facing the journal (quoting from my resignation letter): “- limitations of proposed targets for growth of the journal, transfer pathways, etc – strategy for maintaining/increasing the quality and reach of the journal, – strategy for supporting an effective ‘global biogeography’ initiative, – concerns about equity and inclusion around flipping the journal to OA – appropriate recompense for AEs, dEiCs, EiC, – approaches to the journal that can support and enhance scientific community and thus improve the journal’s long-term prospects.”
In trying to initiate discussions with Wiley about these issues, and being rebuffed multiple times, I came to the conclusion that the opportunities for improvement at the journal that appeared available until late-2022, had receded. What Wiley has failed to understand is that our interests are their interests. These issues seemed symptomatic of larger problems with the for-profit scientific publishing industry. I concluded I could do more by leaving than by staying.
If you’d like to makepositive change, here are some ideas.
McGill, B., M.B. Araújo, J. Franklin, H.P. Linder & M.N Dawson. (2018) Writing the future of Biogeography. Frontiers of Biogeography 10:e41964. https://doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG41964
If you’d like to learn a little more about some of these issues, here are a selection of additional editorials we’ve published over the years that address some of these topics.
Dawson, M.N., T. Gillespie, V.V. Robin, K.A. Tolley, & T. Vasconcelos. (in press) The Global Biogeography Initiative. Journal of Biogeography 50:xxxx-xxxx.
Dawson, M.N. Celebrating Judith Masters and introducing a memorial fund to support scholars underrepresented in biogeography. (in press) Journal of Biogeography 50:xxxx-xxxx.
Dawson, M.N. (2023) Our debt to reviewers. Journal of Biogeography 50:41-42.
Dawson, M.N, R.A. Correia, & R.J. Ladle. (2023) Five decades of biogeography: a view from the Journal of Biogeography. Journal of Biogeography 50:1-7.
Meynard, C.N., G. Bernardi, C. Fraser, J. Masters, C. Riginos, I. Sanmartin, K.A. Tolley, & M.N Dawson. (2021) Women in Biogeography. Journal of Biogeography 48:2117–2120. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14223
Hortal, J., C. Meyer, D. Bourguet, & M.N Dawson. (2019) Slow publishing in the age of ‘fast food’. Frontiers of Biogeography 11.2, e42697. doi:10.21425/F5FBG42697
And there is a burgeoning literature — and media coverage — on challenges to and disruption in scientific publishing. Their effects are far reaching.
Look around, get informed, and form your own appraisal. #BetterPublishing #JBI
André Luís Luza is a postdoc at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil. He is an ecologist with special focus on community ecology, macroecology, and macroevolution. Here, André shares his recent work on functional diversity patterns of reef fish, corals and algae.
André Luís Luza is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria – Rio Grande do Sul/Brazil.
Institute. Department of Ecology and Evolution, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil
Academic life stage. Postdoc
Major research themes. I study community ecology, macroecology, and macroevolution, with a strong focus on integrating theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches from these fields. My primary interest lies in investigating how past and present dynamics shape current biodiversity patterns.
Current study system. Shallow-water reefs occur along the coastal tropical and subtropical areas of the global ocean and support a multitude of unique interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment. Brazilian shallow-water reefs form an interesting and often intriguing study system, especially due to their unique evolutionary history. Isolated from the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean reef biodiversity hotspots for over 3 million years, these reefs have evolved distinct patterns of endemism, species richness, and trait diversity. The influence of freshwater and sediment discharge from the continent’s large rivers adds further complexity. Despite their remarkable characteristics, the geographical patterns of reef diversity in the Brazilian Biogeographical Province and the underlying driving factors are yet to be fully understood.
Recent JBIpaper. Luza, A. L., Aued, A. W., Barneche, D. R., Dias, M. S., Ferreira, C. E. L., Floeter, S. R., Francini-Filho, R. B., Longo, G. O., Quimbayo, J. P., & Bender, M. G. (2023). Functional diversity patterns of reef fish, corals and algae in the Brazilian biogeographical province. Journal of Biogeography, 50, 1163– 1176. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14599
Motivation behind this paper. Our recent paper was motivated by two main factors. Firstly, while interactions between organisms and environmental gradients can generate spatially congruent patterns of diversity across reef ecosystems, this aspect had not been evaluated for fish, corals, and algae in the Brazilian reefs. Secondly, we aimed to address a gap in the understanding of functional diversity patterns by assessing spatial congruence among distantly related groups. Traits such as size, morphology, feeding behavior, and mobility play a vital role in how organisms associate and respond to the environment. Thus, our study aimed to fill this knowledge gap in this extensive biogeographical province using a trait-based approach.
Reef fish, including endemic parrotfishes (Labridae family), sharing the seascape and interacting with algae and endemic corals in the Abrolhos Bank, northeast Brazil. Reefs in Brazil develop under turbid and nutrient-rich waters, producing unique assemblages of species. Photo credit: João Paulo Krajewski
Key methodologies. Our recent paper was developed as part of an ecological synthesis working group called ‘ReefSYN’ (SinBiose, CNPq). The ReefSYN collaborators collected and compiled occurrence data and functional traits of fish and benthic reef organisms along the Brazilian coast and oceanic islands. This unprecedented effort in building comprehensive databases and conducting cross-taxon analyses enabled us to assess diversity patterns in Brazilian reefs using spatially replicated local data.
To assess spatial congruence, we employed Bayesian multivariate linear models, which are particularly suitable and innovative. These models allowed us to simultaneously evaluate: i) the spatial correlation between the functional diversity of reef fish, corals, and algae; ii) the influence of various factors (such as sea surface temperature and species richness) on the functional diversity of each group; and iii) the residual spatial correlation after accounting for these factors.
This approach enabled us to determine whether the existing congruence was driven by the modeled factors or by unaccounted variables. By leveraging these methodologies, our study provided new insights into the patterns of spatial congruence and the underlying drivers of functional diversity in Brazilian reefs.
Feeding aggregation of coney (Cephalopholis fulva, Epinephelidae family) in tropical rocky reefs of Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, northeast Brazil. Photo credit: João Paulo Krajewski.
Unexpected challenges. During our research journey, we encountered unexpected outcomes and challenges that enhanced the depth of our scientific inquiry. Matching occurrence and trait data for different organisms and conducting analyses across distantly related groups proved to be challenging. The sampling of reef fish and benthic organisms was carried out by separate teams, using different methods, which resulted in data being organized in various formats. Standardizing these datasets for interoperability required a collaborative effort and an exploration of the field of data science. Analyzing the functional diversity of distantly related groups presented another challenge, as organisms separated by significant phylogenetic distances share few common traits. Furthermore, the resolution of traits was higher for fish compared to corals and algae. To overcome these challenges, we delved into trait-based approaches, leveraging available traits to facilitate meaningful comparisons of functional diversity patterns across groups. These unexpected outcomes and challenges enriched our research journey, compelling us to employ innovative solutions and embrace interdisciplinary approaches to unravel the complexities of the Brazilian reef ecosystems.
Major results. The major finding of our recent paper reveals the spatial correlations in functional diversity among reef fish, corals, and algae in the Brazilian Province. Interestingly, we discovered weak to intermediate correlations in the patterns of functional diversity across these groups. Additionally, these patterns deviated from the classic latitudinal diversity gradient observed in other regions. Sea surface temperature (SST), species richness, and regional factors were identified as key determinants that influence the spatial correlations in functional diversity. Our study contributes to the field by shedding light on the factors that underlie the spatial congruence between groups of organisms. We demonstrate that both present factors (SST and species richness) and past factors (region) play crucial roles in shaping the observed spatial patterns. Importantly, we highlight the vulnerability of reef functional structure to cumulative anthropogenic impacts, such as climate change, pollution, and overfishing. These impacts have the potential to disrupt species composition, alter environmental gradients, and affect functional redundancy, posing a threat to the overall resilience of reef ecosystems.
The fire coral Millepora alcicornis and the Queen angelfish (Holacanthus ciliaris) in Abrolhos reefs (Brazil). Photo credit: João Paulo Krajewski.
Next steps for this research. The discovery of an overall low to intermediate correlation in functional diversity among reef fish, corals, and algae opens up intriguing avenues for future research. We aim to delve deeper into understanding the factors that have shaped this congruence and explore the functioning of these ecosystems, despite the weak relationships between organisms. Our next steps involve investigating the presence of ecological engineers or keystone species that drive crucial ecological fluxes and nutrient cycling, as well as their spatial distribution within the reefs. Additionally, we aim to assess the vulnerability of these key species to the impacts of climate change. Can Brazilian reefs simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem functions and services, despite low ecological congruence? These questions remain open and will guide our future investigations.
If you could study any organism on Earth, what would it be? If I were given the opportunity to study any organism on Earth, I would choose to concentrate on extinct organisms, specifically fossils of vertebrates. Fossils offer invaluable insights into the ecological and evolutionary processes that have shaped the patterns of biodiversity we currently observe. For instance, through the examination of fish fossils in conjunction with phylogenetic analyses, we can enhance our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the weak association between reef fish and benthic organisms in the Brazilian province. This multidimensional approach would enable us to uncover the ecological and evolutionary dynamics that have influenced present-day reef ecosystems.
Anything else to add? In my journey as a biologist, I initially focused on studying non-volant small mammals in grassland and forest ecosystems, starting from my undergraduate years in Biology back in 2010. While collaborating on various research projects involving birds, amphibians, and mosquitoes, I had never worked with marine organisms before joining ReefSYN as a postdoctoral researcher in 2020. This presented an exciting challenge for me as I delved into the fascinating field of reef ecology. It wasn’t until March 2023, three years after becoming part of the ReefSYN working group, that I had my first diving experience. Currently, my research is centered around a project that combines macreecology, macroevolution, and paleontology. The project aims to unravel the mechanisms driving the emergence of the first mammals and understand the consequences of the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. By bridging these disciplines, we hope to shed light on key evolutionary processes and their impact on the diversification of life.
Of fruits, seeds, and vectors – biogeographic processes and the impact of long-distance dispersal.
Above: Fruits and flowers of Epicharis cuneata (Hiern) Harms, which is a rainforest tree species from the Meliaceae. Photo credit: Alexandra N. Muellner-Riehl.
This study started with the aim to investigate the biogeographic history of Dysoxylum s.l., a polyphyletic group of rainforest trees in the Meliaceae. The distribution of genera lent itself for two main investigations: (1) whether Dysoxylum s.l. follows the known directional bias (West to East) of the Sunda-Sahul floristic exchange, and (2) by which means Didymocheton achieved its current distribution in the Southwest Pacific. As for the Sunda-Sahul floristic exchange, this study greatly profited from previous research, while plant dispersal in the Southwest Pacific is still insufficiently known. From this starting point, our focus also extended to the underlying biogeographic processes and testing the impact of long-distance dispersal.
Cover article: (open access) Holzmeyer, L., Hauenschild, F., & Muellner-Riehl, A. N. (2023) Sunda–Sahul floristic exchange and pathways into the Southwest Pacific: New insights from wet tropical forest trees. Journal of Biogeography 50(7), 1257-1270. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14606.
Two dispersal routes were identified into the Southwest Pacific, from New Guinea through the Solomon Islands to Fiji, and from New Zealand directly to Fiji. While dispersal out of New Guinea is rather frequent, dispersal out of New Zealand was observed only once. Our insights on dispersal routes supported the impactful position Fiji holds as a secondary source for dispersal events in this region.
Area map displayed in Mercator projection. J: Australia, Asia, Africa, South America (non-Pacific); K: Solomon Islands; L: Vanuatu; M: New Caledonia; N: Fiji; O: Tonga; P: Samoa and Wallis et Futuna; Q: New Zealand; R: New Guinea. Arrows indicating the two dispersal routes identified by AAR.
While looking for information on dispersal vectors, I was astonished by the scarcity of species information on bird dispersers of Dysoxylum s.l. In order to better understand Pacific plant dispersal processes and routes, the relationship between fruits and seeds and their dispersal vectors needs to be studied in the future.
Fruits of Epicharis cuneata (Hiern) Harms. Photo credit: Alexandra N. Muellner-Riehl.
Written by: Laura Holzmeyer Department of Molecular Evolution and Plant Systematics & Herbarium (LZ), Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Anne is a postdoc at the Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, CNRS, France. She is an ecologist studying at the intersection of phylogenetics, biogeography, and climate change. Both in prose and verse, Anne shares the history of New Zealand’s largest plant radiation.
Anne hugging a hebe in the subalpine tussock grassland of the Rock and Pillar range in Otago, NZ.
Institute. Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, CNRS, France.
Academic life stage. Postdoc.
Recent JBIpaper. Thomas, A., Meudt, H. M., Larcombe, M. J., Igea, J., Lee, W. G., Antonelli, A., & Tanentzap, A. J. (2023). Multiple origins of mountain biodiversity in New Zealand’s largest plant radiation. Journal of Biogeography, 50(5), 947–960. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14589
Uplifting Plants: How Mountains Generate Plant Diversity.
Mountains all over the world are known as biodiversity hotspots. New Zealand’s largest group of endemic plants, flowering shrubs called hebes (genus Veronica), has over 120 species, most of which live in mountain habitats in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. DNA evidence suggests the group is only around 6 million years old—relatively young on an evolutionary timescale—but hebes have surprisingly diverse forms. They range from small trees with long, narrow leaves, to dense shrubs, to cushion plants that only grow in the high alpine zone. Can their preferred mountain habitats explain how hebes evolved so much diversity in so little time?
I explored this question in my PhD research, but also through poetry. Before delving further into the scientific take on mountain diversity, here’s a poem to give us a look at the diversity of hebes in situ.
Field Guide to New Zealand Veronica
Hunting hebes, you climb east-facing cliffs scramble rocky river gorge hike to treeline through sparse mountain scrub.
Phyllotaxis: decussate that is, look for leaf pair rotate right angle leaf pair again, again, again, squared-off spiral up the stem jazzy ladder to diamond leaf bud waiting to spring and spread into more rungs.
Find rock shelf, crevice, seepage pick your way up scree slope look for limestone outcrop or margins of ephemeral alpine pool.
Inflorescence: simple lateral raceme of crowded, spiralled, pedicellate flowers that is, find fountain and froth of flowers four white lobes framing demurely the shock of hot pink anthers where the pollen calls and the green-nestled ovules waiting to swell into capsuled fruit.
Range through fellfield, herbfield streamside, rockslide tussock grassland, cloud forest coastal bluff, bare greywacke road cutting, bog, sand, beech shade, snowbank—
Take the leaf-ladders and the froth-flowers and the rock-hound roots shrink them to cushions spin them out to long-leafed trees round them down to springy shrubs press them into rawhide whipcords spread them through golden grass tuck them into cracks—
huddle in the cold, reach for the light wander alone between rock walls
for six million years and find one-hundred-and-more variations on a theme.
If you loved rock and light like a hebe with all New Zealand to hide in, where would you go? What would you be?
Phyllotaxis: decussate
Some of the hypothesized reasons for high mountain diversity in places like the Andes and Himalayas are centred on the habitat: high heterogeneity, barriers to gene flow between populations, and novel, harsh conditions that allow suitably adapted plants to escape competition. These conditions could encourage speciation within mountains. However, the diversity could also come from surrounding areas, transferring to the mountains through colonization. In New Zealand, the estimated origin of the Southern Alps is several million years after that of the hebes, with relief beginning to form around 4 million years ago and a persistent alpine zone around 1.9 million years ago. When the possible ancestor of the hebes arrived in New Zealand, the land was most likely still very flat (a “peneplain”). This makes the hebes a useful case study for teasing apart in situ diversification and colonization as drivers of mountain diversity.
To do this, I first inferred the evolutionary relationships of hebe species with a time-calibrated phylogeny estimated from dozens of genes. This poem gives an idea of what that process is like:
Phylogeny, or A Leaf Has a Long Memory
Look at this leaf firm on its springy stem squeezed where a seed lodged in a limestone crack after a capsule popped on the plant rooted in rock above where a bee brought pollen from over the cliff and the chromosomes found each other.
Pluck this leaf to harvest chromosomes coiled with leaf-code, stem-code, rock-rooting code an inheritance latticed with accidents: A flipped to T, G slipped to C, refolded proteins or silent jots-become-tittles tell the story to be laid open in the leaf.
Look at this leaf crushed to dust in the test tube ready for the chemical alchemy of centrifuge and pipette, enzyme and heat: essence unfurled, swirled, chopped and copied until a mountain is made of a molehill of leaf-letters.
Trace the branches spun from crushed leaves and leaf-letters and mathematical model ticking back time pressing into lines the slow drama of glaciers calving and halving ranges, the bee-flow of pollen, chromosomes doubling, leaves finding new shapes and new branches on the family tree.
Look at the letters aligned and inscrutable on the screen pieced together by computer algorithm sleuthing the deep-buried footnotes of leaf— ribosome, hormone, the space between— leaf-cousin by leaf-cousin, their cascade of edits sifted side-by-side into snippets of sense.
A leaf has a long memory. We do our best to tease it free.
After estimating when species formed, the next step is to reconstruct where they might have formed. With the phylogeny telling us about the past and a map of species telling us about the present, we can do some math to predict the most likely path the ancestral species would have taken through the landscape to arrive at their present distributions. This is historical biogeographical modelling.
My models showed that the core group of hebes, to which most of the species belong, didn’t arise until their common ancestor colonized the newly rising mountains, followed by a surge of speciation. Their evolution was indeed linked to the new mountain habitat. The surprising thing was that even though the mountains kept rising, the rate of new species didn’t. When the mountains rose high enough for there to be a treeless high alpine zone, most species successfully expanded their range to live in that new habitat. However, only a few species split off into new specialist alpine species, and the rest were happy continuing to live in both the subalpine and the alpine zones without forming many new species. This could indicate that the first successful species outcompeted any new species that tried to form.
This pattern could also have implications for the future. I’ve been talking about broad evolutionary time: millions of years. There was a lot of change in this time—not only the mountains rising but also fluctuations in climate. There were warm and cold periods and glacial advance and retreat, which created extra challenges and opportunities for hebes in the mountains. Clearly, a lot of them were able to survive, but there were likely others that didn’t. Now we’re facing a period of unprecedented climate change. In another few million years, the New Zealand flora will inevitably look different. But the question for the immediate future is, how much evolutionary potential in the diversity we have now might be lost to the speed of environmental change? The generalists with wide ranges might survive, but they also might push out the species specially adapted to the coldest zones, the cushion plants and whipcords. Or they might be pushed out themselves by plants from even warmer areas.
I’ll leave you with a poem that imagines the perspective of one of those alpine plants.
Alpine Elegy
I am alpine. I hunch and hug the ground where the wind sears and summer is too cold for trees. I like it here. I’m found nowhere else.
My ten-millionth-great grandparents clung to coastal rocks when the land was low and warm blanketed in beech shade. Lifting land meant shifting luck for their children: new rocks, wind, and light. They climbed.
After mountains rose, glaciers descended. My ancestors were ice-dodgers as the crush heaved down and up their home-slopes. They sent out seeds with luck and pluck. Some survived.
It’s been quieter. For ten thousand generations my kin and I have calibrated to this high band of land, its stable chill, its harsh peace. The alpine made us. We made it our own.
But I sense change in the wind— winter losing its edge snow blanket growing bare shady strangers creeping in no longer kept at bay by freeze. I will my children upslope. I hope I gift them lucky genes.
And when they find only sky?
Hebes, Veronica section Hebe species. Flowers (top left), showcases fruits after seeds have been released (bottom left), species with a whipcord habit (centre), apical leaf bud (top right) and tree habit and unripe fruit (bottom right).
The search for a yardstick to gauge geographic variation in a taxonomic context yielded answers to broader biogeographical questions
Above: Geographic variants in the Allen’s common moustached (Pteronotus fuscus). Left, cranium and mandible of a specimen from Paraguaná Peninsula (CVULA 8197). Center, cranium and mandible of a specimen from Venezuela south of the Orinoco River (CVULA 8155). Right above, wing of CVULA 8155. Right below, wing of another specimen from Paraguaná Peninsula (CVULA 8150).
Islands come in many sizes, ages, and kinds: from small to large; old to recent; isolated or part of archipelagos; continental or oceanic; and combinations thereof. On continents, there are also the so-called ecological islands—e.g. unconnected habitat patches, caves, and lakes—including ‘sky’ islands (mountainous areas surrounded by drastically different lowland environments) that also vary in size, age, and degree of isolation. Marine organisms, particularly those inhabiting isolated benthonic patches, have been postulated to be insular. The barriers that separate islands hamper gene flow thus are a major cause of speciation worldwide.
Since Darwin’s time, botanists and zoologist have been busy describing and cataloguing insular biodiversity, and islands have been fundamental as natural laboratories to study evolution. In the 1960’s, these efforts flourished in the form of the MacArthur-Wilson Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography, which postulated that the number of species on an island is related to its area, its distance from the mainland, and its balance between immigration and extinction. In the 1970’s, the ‘island rule’ was formulated, postulating that after colonizing islands animals become smaller if they were large and larger if they were small on the mainland; that is, it is predicted that they will converge to ‘optimal’ intermediate sizes thanks to the release from mainland predators and competitors failing to colonize the same islands.
I am a zoologist from Venezuela, a megadiverse country in northern South America. My interests include the taxonomy of Neotropical mammals, especially bats. In this and other animal groups, the degree of continuity and magnitude of geographic variation are of paramount importance to decide how many species and subspecies need to be recognized, or be included in conservation plans. One of the greatest complexities of taxonomic work involves deciding consistently how much geographic variation is sufficient to be formally reflected in scientific nomenclature. Thus taxonomists can be characterized as individuals who are perpetually searching for, refining, and applying morphological yardsticks to gauge geographic variation in their study organisms. I became interested in the island rule as part of this search.
Geographic variants in the Allen’s common moustached (Pteronotus fuscus). Above, typical specimen from the Venezuelan mainland. Below, specimen from Paraguaná Peninsula, in northwestern Venezuela.
Island rule studies caught my attention not only because they deal with geographic variation, but also because their fundamental metric, namely the size ratio between the members of the allopatric populations being compared, could be the yardstick that I needed. As I familiarized myself with the theme, I met a number of problems. First and foremost, despite the availability of information, no comprehensive study of the island rule existed for bats. Second, most island rule research was devoted to the comparison of island organisms with their mainland relatives, thus largely ignored within-mainland and inter-island size variation, which are relevant not only to taxonomy, but also as a frame of reference for the island rule itself. Third, bat taxonomists do not generally use body mass as a character to differentiate species; instead they use cranial and wing measurements because they are more constant. Body mass—in order to increase sample size, often inferred from diverse linear measurements—is the dependent variable generally used in island rule research. Thus most information found in island rule literature was inapplicable to taxonomy. To fill these gaps, I initiated the study on bats that has just been published in the Journal of Biogeography.
Editors’ choice / Cover article: (Free to read online for two years.) Molinari, J. (2023). A global assessment of the ‘island rule’ in bats based on functionally distinct measures of body size. Journal of Biogeography, 50. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14624
The search for a morphological yardstick was successful. This is exemplified by the Allen’s common moustached bat (Pteronotus fuscus). Although allopatric populations of this species—or species complex—were known to differ substantially in cranial and wing dimensions (see figures above), now we can affirm that such morphometric variation is unusual, overall the greatest of the 251 bat species included in the study.
The results of the study transcended the initial goal of finding a yardstick to gauge geographic variation, and were amenable to address broader biogeographic questions. Thus I tested:
1) Whether bats follow the island rule, which has previously been concluded to be pervasive in mammals and other vertebrates. I found this not to be the case. The most likely explanation for this exception is that bats do not follow this rule owing to limitations imposed by flight and echolocation.
2) Whether on islands bat body sizes converge to intermediate supraspecific optima, as predicted by theoretical studies. I concluded that this is not the case and that instead sizes converge to species-specific optima, as the general pattern of geographic variation in bats—which appears to be dependent on ecological niches rather than on adaptive zones—would suggest.
3) Whether bats would be ranked in a similar order by skull size, by wing dimensions, and by body mass. Again, I also found this not to be the case. The most likely reason is that the three size measures are functionally distinct—being respectively most relevant to the feeding, movement, and physiological ecology of bats)—thus are subjected to different selective forces.
4) Whether a bias has existed to give formal taxonomic recognition with greater frequency to bats distributed across mainland-to-island ranges than to those distributed across island-to-island or within-mainland ranges. I concluded that this is the case. The explanation is that, owing to the long-standing fascination exerted by islands on evolutionary biologists, there has been a high level of interest in describing morphological differences between island species and their mainland counterparts.
Where do we go from here? In 2006, Mark Lomolino, a pioneer of island rule studies, and his collaborators, proposed a research agenda calling for the use of a comparative approach expanded to include a greater diversity of species, to test the island rule and other ecogeographic patterns and their exceptions. This agenda remains fully valid today. More ecogeographic studies of all kinds of organisms are needed that address ordinal and familial level variation across different kinds of geographic range.
Written by: Jesús Molinari Zoologist and ecologist at the Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela
Long-term demographic processes of species leave behind traces in various forms, such as spatial genetic structure in extant populations and fossil remains in the ground. Combining these complementary sources of evidence from a dense sampling across the entire natural range of Swiss stone pine helped us to unravel the glacial history of this timberline species.
Above: Field site with a view: Swiss stone pine forest on Riederfurka above Aletsch glacier, with a historic monument in the foreground and geological monuments in the distance (photo: Felix Gugerli).
Imagine walking along the upper end of forest occurrence in the Alps or a similar high-elevation mountain system. Looking around, you will likely recognize certain imprints of former glacial activity, visible as remnant moraines and rocks showing glacier polish. These typical features of today’s alpine landscape remind us that this habitat was formerly ice-covered but has since been (re-)colonized by forest trees and their associated plants, fungi and animals. You might wonder how slow-growing, long-lived trees could swiftly cope with the long-term dynamics of past glacial–interglacial cycles by shifting their range to benign habitats outside their alpine terrain—and back again following the retreating ice cover.
Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra), the emblematic tree species of the timberline ecotone, on the verge of the Aletsch glacier (Switzerland)—yet the largest, but also quickly melting body of ice in the European Alps (photo: César Morales-Molino).
Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra) is an emblematic tree species with diverse and fascinating growth forms that reflect long-lasting endurance of extreme alpine weather conditions. This species occurs in a beautiful, almost mystical alpine landscape in the European Alps and in scattered places in the Carpathian Mountains, and it displays an intriguing interaction with nutcrackers that hoard its seed for winter food. How could such a species cope with moving to and fro its current habitat in response to shifting climates and glaciers? And how could we best decipher this demographic history using the material at hand? The extant trees reveal their population history through their genealogy: It is common routine to unveil demographic processes using genetic markers (phylogeography, demographic modelling). Similarly hidden information can be retrieved from remains of former occurrences, e.g., in lake sediments or even buried underneath now retreating glaciers: Here, we find fossil pollen deposits, or occasional macrofossils that provide evidence of immediate presence of a given species near the place of discovery. However, both approaches have their limitations: Genetic inference lacks precise dating or localization of the migration routes and of refugial areas, and palaeoecology does not disclose intraspecific differentiation to inform about which genetic lineage occurred at a given site in the past.
Cover article: (Open Access) Gugerli, F., Brodbeck, S., Lendvay, B., Dauphin, B., Bagnoli, F., Tinner, W., Van Der Knaap, W.O., Höhn, M., Vendramin, G.G., Morales-Molino, C. & Schwörer, C. (2023) A range-wide postglacial history of Swiss stone pine based on molecular markers and palaeoecologicalevidence. Journal of Biogeography, 50, 1049–1062. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14586
There are clear benefits if geneticists and palaeoecologists are teaming up. Both disciplines contribute their relevant share when it comes to deciphering the history of a species in a spatio-temporal context and provide complementary insights into the past. Doing this in a wonderful study system such as Swiss stone pine forest makes the (field)work even more appealing. However, sampling often comes with strenuous ascents to high-elevation forests, possibly hauling coring equipment to picturesque mountain lakes. But efforts are well compensated once floating on a coring platform or strolling among bizarre trees to collect needle samples for DNA extractions, with nervous nutcrackers croaking above your head fearing food theft. Not to mention the beautiful view to high-elevation, still glacier-covered mountains nearby. Such work resembles forensics: digging in the “dirt” to uncover the past through palaeoecological evidence in the ground, while conducting molecular-genetic lab work to derive testimonies left behind on the “crime scene”.
The European nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes) is the predominant seed disperser of P. cembra. Cached seed that are not recovered and remain in the ground may subsequently germinate and establish to form the new Swiss stone pine generation (photo: Eike Lena Neuschulz).
Admittedly, the fun part stops once back in the labs—seemingly endless hours of identifying and counting pollen or macrofossils, thousands of pipette tips wasted. But the reward comes back once analyses shape the data piles into meaningful heaps and structures. In the case of Swiss stone pine: We found a remarkably distinct spatial structure of two lineages comprising five genetic clusters, but rather evenly distributed genetic diversity, implying that demographic changes over long periods did not have a marked (negative) effect on genetic diversity. To our surprise, the separation of the two main lineages did not coincide with the pronounced geographical disjunction between the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains, but it appeared in the Central Alps, in an area previously recognized as a bio- and phylogeographic contact zone. This finding suggests a more ancient split of these lineages, and indeed, demographic inference estimated the divergence back to more than 200,000 years ago. This period coincides with a particularly long warm stage (MIS7 interglacial). Such warm periods, but also the very cold phases in-between (glacial stadials), led to geographical isolation, whereas the largest range expansions occurred in the course of cool transitional periods (interstadials) like the Bølling/Allerød during the last deglaciation. While fossil evidence does not reach as far back in time to document the ancient split of lineages, the palaeoecological records compiled allowed us to narrow down refugial areas occupied by Swiss stone pine during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the Po plain of northern Italy and expanding into Friuli and Slovenia, another area in the Carpathian forelands, in the Hungarian plain, and possibly in the Bohemian massif. The footprints of respective re-colonization routes, inferred from dated palaeoecological findings, match well with the genetic structure identified in extant Swiss stone pine populations—evidence of the added value when combining datasets and looking across disciplinary boundaries.
While these outcomes are interesting per se, they are not the end of the story yet. Is it possible to obtain a refined picture of palaeoecological records? What was the genetic make-up of the refugial populations? Can we track the evolution of genetic clusters along their migration routes? Are there changes in allele frequencies at adaptive loci? Further research avenues consist of coring sediments in places where it has not been done, but where LGM or even older occurrences may be possible, and if not done so, distinguishing Pinus pollen in existing and new samples to the species level to separate P. cembra from P. sylvestris/uncinata. Analyses of DNA retrieved from macrofossils may shed light onto the genetic composition of ancient populations, including environmentally driven changes in adaptive genetic variation.
Coring platform on an alpine lake (Lai da Vons, Switzerland), with Swiss stone pine overseeing that sediment coring is done accurately (photo: Christoph Schwörer).
But the most pressing question remains yet unanswered: What is the fate of Swiss stone pine in view of a seemingly super interglacial as a consequence of anthropogenic climate warming? These trees are among the oldest in European mountain forests, as such reflecting demographic stasis, but they are deemed to respond quickly to rapidly changing climate by moving uphill. Unless demographic (dispersal) or adaptive processes keep up the pace of climate warming, we anticipate a gradual decline through competitive exclusion and possibly local extinction of Swiss stone pine—a worrying perspective for this magnificent timberline forest ecosystem and the species it is composed of.
Written by:
Felix Gugerli, Senior Scientist, Biodiversity & Conservation Biology, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
César Morales-Molino, Postdoctoral researcher, Grupo de Ecología y Restauración Forestal, Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Christoph Schwörer, Group leader, Institute of Plant Sciences and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Sandra H. Arenas is a PhD student at Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain. She is a marine biologist with a special focus on seaweeds ecophysiology and distribution. Here, Sandra shares her recent work on adaptation of seaweeds to climate change.
Recent JBIpaper. Hernández, S., García, A. G., Arenas, F., Escribano, M. P., Jueterbock, A., De Clerck, O., Maggs, C. A., Franco, J. N., & Martínez, B. D. C. (2023). Range-edge populations of seaweeds show niche unfilling and poor adaptation to increased temperatures. Journal of Biogeography, 50, 780-791. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14572
Video abstract. Since global warming is affecting the distribution of species worldwide and the degree of adaptation to high temperatures is still unknown in most cases, this study aims to study whether the European populations of two macroalgae species differ in their thermal tolerance ranges. To do this, we selected European populations from 8 different localities of the brown alga Ascophyllum nodosum (Linnaeus) Le Jolis and 6 of the red alga Chondrus crispus Stackhouse. These populations underwent a thermal gradient experiment ranging from 12º – 30ºC to determine their upper survival temperatures (USTs). Those USTs, approximately 24°C, were used as thresholds to assess the existence of safety margins and thermal niche unfilling states by comparing then with the maximum seawater surface temperature. Both species had thermal safety margins over the last few decades. However, these safety margins are projected to disappear in the Bay of Biscay (Spain) under RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 2090–2100 IPCC scenarios for C. crispus and under RCP8.5 for both species, since those southern marginal populations are not better adapted to global warming, as revealed by the USTs.
Biography. I’m Sandra Hernández Arenas, a pre-doctoral researcher in the Biodiversity Area at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain. I obtained my Biology Degree from the same university in 2011-2015. Subsequently, I pursued a Marine Biology Master’s at Vigo University in Galicia, Spain from 2015-2017. Additionally, I completed an Education Master’s at Rey Juan Carlos University from 2018-2019 to become a secondary teacher.
My passion for the underwater world has led me to acquire various dive qualifications in recreational diving. I am also deeply interested in the field of education, and I fill my time by teaching laboratory classes at the university. However, I do not rule out dedicating myself fully to teaching in the future if my time through the world of research cannot continue.
My recently published paper in the Journal of Biogeography is a part of my Ph.D. thesis focused on marine macroalgae. My research primarily revolves around ecophysiology, species distribution models, niche changes, and alien species. The overarching goal of my work is conservation, specifically investigating how climate change might impact macroalgae populations along our coastlines.
Victoria Glynn is a PhD candidate at McGill University, Canada. She is an ecologist & science educator with a special focus on coral adaptation to environmental stressors. Here, Victoria shares her recent work on the factors structuring coral-algal symbioses.
Recent JBIpaper. Glynn, V. M., Vollmer, S. V., Kline, D. I., & Barrett, R. D. H. (2023) . Environmental and geographical factors structure cauliflower coral’s algal symbioses across the Indo-Pacific. Journal of Biogeography, 50(4), 669–684. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14560
Caption. There is a complex interplay between thermal history and geographic isolation in structuring the symbioses of cauliflower corals (Pocillopora spp.) and their dinoflagellates (family Symbiodiniaceae). When analyzing publicly available dinoflagellate marker-gene data from the nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2), cauliflower corals across the Indo-Pacific were found to associate with three different dinoflagellate genera: Cladocopium spp., Durusdinium spp., and Symbiodinium spp.
(1) We found some evidence that geographic isolation could explain dinoflagellate community differences, but the effect was relatively weak.
(2) Sea surface temperature was the factor that most strongly affected community composition, such that corals from locations most similar in temperature had more similar dinoflagellate communities.
(3) Additionally, when considering time since the last mass bleaching event, corals that had more recently bleached (within the last 5 years) had similar proportions of Cladocopium spp. and Durusdinium spp. Meanwhile, corals that had not recently bleached were additionally associated with Symbiodinium spp. Together, our findings highlight how local environmental conditions and bleaching history can impact coral-dinoflagellate symbioses, even in a coral genus with a widespread distribution.
Biography. Victoria Marie Glynn is a PhD candidate at McGill University (Montréal, Québec) and a Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. She is broadly interested in how corals and their microorganisms (microbiome) implement a diversity of strategies to cope with environmental stress. Victoria implements cutting-edge molecular techniques to answer the overarching question: who is there, and what are they doing? As a STRI Fellow, she leverages the unique conditions of Panama’s Tropical Eastern Pacific, where upwelling occurs on a seasonal basis and El Niño events are common, to study the mechanisms underlying coral bleaching. Outside research, Victoria is involved in various science outreach and equity, diversity, and inclusion projects as a Science Education Fellow in the Office of Science Education at McGill and the Redpath Museum’s graduate public programming representative. She also creates scientific illustrations to add a storytelling element to her practice, so that fellow researchers and the general public alike can better understand the various scales and dynamics she is investigating.
