This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for FY 2009. The fellowship supports a research and training plan entitled "Understanding forest responses to climate change through fossils, genetics, and models" for Yi-Hsin Eric Tsai. The host institution for this research is Louisiana State University, and the sponsoring scientist is Bryan Carstens.
Current changes in global climate force the geographic ranges of species to shift, leading to the assembly of unique forest communities. Since the last ice age to present day, range changes of a variety of species have been investigated using ecological niche models, phylogeographic genetic data, and fossil pollen data. This research 1) uses a bioinformatics approach to compile already available genetic and fossil pollen data sets and to generate new ecological niche models for over 35 eastern North American and European tree/shrub species, in order to determine past constraints on range expansion for these species. Secondly, this research groups species according to the major factors preventing range expansion, in order to link these factors with life history characteristics. Thirdly, this research employs a hypothesis-testing approach to assess relevance of specific geographic barriers and historical events on present-day distribution of multiple taxa. This research contributes to improving predictions regarding future migration patterns in order to devise best management practices for conservation.
Training goals include extending skills in ecological modeling, geographic information systems, and spatial statistics. Furthermore, because of the interdisciplinary nature of the project, it necessarily helps establish collaborations between the fields of community ecology, paleoecology, and phylogeography with mentoring opportunities at all levels. The conceptual and methodological advancements as well as software tools produced can then easily be applied by other researchers to other datasets and regions around the world. This project contributes to the broader understanding of patterns of biodiversity (both historical and future) shifts, which is important to forecasting the biological impacts of global change.
