Investigators will study processes responsible for the origin and maintenance of biodiversity on oceanic islands. To uncover the evolutionary processes generating biodiversity within and among island populations, the investigators will use modern DNA techniques to determine population history of representatives of two lizard families with broad Pacific distributions. Genetic data and current methods of genetic data analysis will be used in conjunction with geological data to infer the ways in which populations become isolated and genetically distinct, a crucial first step in speciation. The project will focus on the Vanuatu archipelago a recently emergent island chain located in an area of high species richness in the southwest Pacific Ocean.
This project is innovative in its focus on the early stages (< 2 million years) of evolution within an archipelago. Despite the incredible biodiversity of island groups such as Hawaii and the Galapagos islands, biologists do not have a good understanding of the processes essential to the initial development of biodiversity after island emergence. Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and additional data will be made freely available via the Museum's online databases. As part of this project, a female graduate student will be trained in reptile taxonomy, molecular DNA techniques, and phylogenetic methods. Additionally, a female Vanuatu biodiversity officer will receive training in the taxonomic and biodiversity survey methods crucial to the conservation of the poorly studied, yet highly threatened, reptile fauna of the Vanuatu archipelago.
