The Indo-Malay-Philippine Archipelago (IMPA) is a biologically, geologically, economically and cultural dynamic region of the world. It is also the global epicenter of marine biodiversity, yet the evolutionary origins of this diversity remain a mystery because the mechanisms driving speciation in the marine realm are poorly understood. Active research in the IMPA pales to the intensive focus on the Great Barrier Reef and Caribbean because of the bureaucratic, cultural and linguistic challenges that face US scientists conducting research in the IMPA. This PIRE (integrated international research and education) project joins the U.S., Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines in researching the distance over which marine populations are connected by larval dispersal, the magnitude of this exchange, the dynamic physical processes that shape dispersal and the evolutionary consequences of the interplay of larvae and their physical environment. Professor Kent Carpenter in the Biological Sciences Department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia leads the partnership with two other U.S. institutions: Boston University and Duke University. A number of other U.S. universities will also be participating. The project will train 6 postdocs, 22 graduate students and 16 undergraduate students on the U.S. side over a period of five years. The Indonesian partners are the Indonesia Institute of Sciences, Diponegoro University, the State University of Papua and Udayana University. The Malaysian partners are the University of Sains Malaysia, the Borneo Marine Research Institute and the University of Malaysia. The Philippine partners are the University of the Philippines, the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and the U.S. Peace Corps in the Philippines. The organization Conservation International is also participating. The resulting international and institutional ties will open new opportunities for exchange among U.S. and IMPA countries.
Moving beyond traditional biogeography and phylogeography, this project is advancing the science of speciation in marine environments by integrating spatially explicit geospatial advective predictive models of larval dispersal with multi-locus estimates of gene flow of fish and invertebrate populations across the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. A broader impact of this project will be to contribute to marine biodiversity conservation and management. Marine environments provide food, pharmaceuticals and a broad array of ecosystem services, but are in decline worldwide. Understanding the processes that generate marine biodiversity is critical to conservation of marine environments. In particular, knowing how ocean currents affect the dispersal of marine larvae is essential to effective design of marine reserve networks and enhanced management of fisheries at the population level. Better understanding of the origins of marine biodiversity in the IMPA will lead to a better understanding of the evolution of biodiversity on the planet and how to safeguard this biodiversity.
This project is co-funded with the Division of Oceanography in the Directorate for Geosciences.
