This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for FY 2008. The fellowship supports a research and training plan entitled "Phylogenetic and Biogeographic Patterns of Coral Triangle Fishes: Illustrating Biodiversity Patterns in the Encyclopedia of Life" for Joshua A. Drew. The host institution for this research is the Field Museum of Chicago, and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Mark Westneat.
The coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific are home to the greatest diversity of species in the world. How so many species have evolved there remains one of the central questions of marine biodiversity studies. This research is looking at whether the high number of species in the Indo-Pacific is due to home grown diversity or due to imports from other regions such as the central Pacific or Indian Ocean. To figure out where this diversity originates this research is building a "family tree" for two highly diverse groups of fishes. The origin of the species (whether native to the Indo-Pacific or from other regions) is determined depending on where the species falls on the tree.
Training objectives include computational techniques for analyzing large data rich nucleotide matrices and using web-based databases. Since marine biodiversity in the Indo-Pacific is under several threats ranging from over-fishing to climate change, this cutting edge information is being brought to the widest number of stakeholders, including being presented directly to the managers in the Indo-Pacific who need to make the conservation decisions necessary to wisely manage these highly diverse coral reefs.
