Western Melanesian Herpetofauna Diversity
Impact & Significance
Research Impact
Significance
This project will provide the first in-depth, cross-taxon study of times and places of origin of southwestern Pacific biodiversity by explicitly synthesising biological and geological evolutionary models for several reptile and amphibian clades having a range of dispersal capabilities.
Not only will this help clarify evolutionary origins, processes, and transitions creating this megadiverse biota, but the reciprocal illumination provided by our biotic and abiotic datasets will provide more robust estimates of when accretion events and emergence of subaerial land occurred, providing important information for both biologists and geologists alike. Unravelling this is crucial for understanding the importance of tectonic movements for the colonisation and generation of global biodiversity.
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Novel discovery
We expect our results to revolutionise understanding of the origins of Pacific island biodiversity through reciprocal illumination between biology and geology, potentially changing the “out-of-New-Guinea” model. We further expect to provide the first search for an empirical correction factor that can be used in translating dates of geological accretion events with emergence of subaerial land on which terrestrial biotas can evolve.
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Future work
The new, advanced framework for understanding the origin, timing and extent of diversity within western Melanesia will bring a significant scientific impact to several academic beneficiaries within the fields of biogeography, evolutionary biology, geology, systematics, conservation and herpetology. We anticipate this work will stimulate future collaborations between geologists and biologists working in other regions of the world.
Community Impact
Capacity building
Whilst on fieldwork we will educate local villagers about their herpetological diversity and encourage them to join us in the field. As well as doing fieldwork, OP will spend two months at UoW to learn molecular and phylogenetic methods—this expertise is lacking in PNG.
Training
This project will train one post-doctoral research assistant, one research assistant, one PhD student, and Masters and Undergraduate students, all supervised by Simon Maddock. High school students will gain laboratory training at the University of Wolverhampton through the Nuffield Research Placement scheme (40 working days/student/year).
Public engagement
Each year, project participants will do freely available public-engagement activities, including: the online, independent Herpetology Seminar Series, targeted at all ages; the online Skype-a-Scientist, targeted at children; Pint of Science, targeted at adults; University of Wolverhampton’s SciFest, targeted at all ages; and Science Re-Public, targeted at adults.
Legacy
Specimens collected will be shared among the PNG National Museum; Natural History Museum, London; and University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Tissue samples will be deposited at the museums following project completion, to provide publicly available access to genetic material. All sequence data will be deposited on National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and all analyses and scripts in an online repository.
