Abstract Detail

Biogeography

Frawley, Emma [1], Cantley, Jason [1], Martine, Christopher [2].

Biogeography in the Australian Monsoon Tropics: Using niche modeling to determine evolutionary relationships with climate for a clade of Solanum. .

The Australian Monsoon Tropics (AMT) is an undisturbed tropical biome that makes up the upper third of Northern Australia. The AMT is home to many endemic lineages of angiosperms, whose floristic evolution and evolutionary relationship to geoclimatic conditions is poorly understood. One of these lineages is a monophyletic clade of andromonoecious Solanum, many species of which are located across three major sandstone formations in the region. This makes their habitats particularly complex and sporadically distributed, a pattern that potentially follows climate fluctuations during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). It is presumed the AMT last underwent periods of hyper-aridity during the LGM, making the study of the Solanum clade during this time period of particular importance. By combining geospatial data from Australian databases with our field data, the current study will produce ecological niche models (MaxENT) for each taxon at their current distribution and for their predicted distribution at the LGM in order to make inferences about biogeographical divergences in the lineage. Models of predicted future distributions will also be generated in order to estimate species stability and areas of potential habitat loss or gain. These results provide preliminary data for a larger study of the biogeographic patterns of ten other angiosperm linages in the AMT that will provide new insight into floristic evolution in the region and how it may correlate to habitat distributions along sandstone escarpments.

1 - Bucknell University, 1 Dent Drive, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, 17837, United States
2 - Bucknell University, Biological Sciences, 203 Biology Building, Lewisburg, PA, 17837, USA

Keywords:
primarily undergraduate institution
undergraduate research
climate change
Solanum
Solanaceae
Australia
ecological niche modeling
speciation
refugia
barriers.

Presentation Type: Poster
Session: P, Biogeography
Location: Exhibit Hall/Omni Hotel
Date: Monday, June 26th, 2017
Time: 5:30 PM This poster will be presented at 5:30 pm. The Poster Session runs from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm. Posters with odd poster numbers are presented at 5:30 pm, and posters with even poster numbers are presented at 6:15 pm.
Number: PBG001
Abstract ID:154
Candidate for Awards:None