Diet, particularly herbivory, is a key ecological factor that promotes vertebrate diversification, but the role of a highly diverse diet in speciation rates remains unclear. We examined how different diets, from specialized diets within herbivory (e.g., frugivory and nectarivory) to different generalist diets within omnivory based on the primary food item, influence speciation rates in Phyllostomid bats, the most dietary-diverse mammalian family. We compare models where diversification rates depend on diet and test models where transition rates vary according to different evolutionary histories of diet

This study uses high-throughput, target capture DNA sequence data to recover phylogenetic relationships in the most comprehensive near species-level sampling to date. We compared biogeographic reconstructions using methods that include the modelled extinction versus models without it. Recovered diversification timings of Palaquium and tribe Isonandreae reconcile more closely to Eocene fossil records.

Theory predicts that a saturation of niche space and other diversity-dependent mechanism preclude clades from growing. We find that for cave amphipods, the dependence of macroevolutionary rates in this group switches among niche axes before saturation, resulting in prolonged high speciation rates during AR.

We measure responses of archaeal growth and activity to pH perturbation in manipulated, long-term, pH-maintained, soil plots. The balance of generalism and specialism over longer timescales is further investigated across evolutionary history.

We incorporate the modelling extinct lineages in reconstructing the historical biogeography of multiple Southeast asian lineages. In contrast to previous biogeographic reconstructions, we find that all of these clades, from plants to vertebrates, have a common and widespread geographic origin, and each has spread and colonized the entire region much earlier than previously thought

Recent, global temperature rise has pushed species towards higher elevations to track their temperature requirements. Because area availability decreases with elevation, any ecological and evolutionary process that is area dependent will be altered. In this project, by the means of extensive simulations, we generate new theoretical expectations on the interaction of mountain geometry with rates of dispersal, speciation and extinction, and ecological niche breadth

The volume taken by a given species in the niche space can be used as a proxy for its role in the ecosystem. In this project we explore whether some ecological roles are linked to high risk of extinction

Our findings reveal substantial altitudinal movement and differences in the proportion of ecosystem types utilized throughout the year that had not been previously reported for several species

We found that the evolution of realized thermal niche breadth causes fluctuations in per-lineage rates of diversification but changes in niche neither triggering nor being a result of speciation events themselves

Over‐water dispersal has been crucial in shaping the modern distribution of austral stream‐inhabiting beetles, likely facilitated by ocean currents and dispersal through Antarctica until the Oligocene

The best fitting SecSSE models indicated that the examined traits were not the primary driver of the heterogeneity in diversification rates in the model. Extinction rate complexity had a marked impact on model performance and on diversification rates

Wen applying SSE methods to empirical datasets, there are increased risks of false inferences of trait dependent diversification when some sub-clades are heavily under-sampled

An impending biodiversity catastrophe demands collaborative actions to improve community-based management, minimize environmental impacts, monitor threatened species, and reduce wildlife trade.

The state-dependent diversification framework (SSE) reconciles the species phenotypic variation with heterogeneous rates of diversification observed in a clade. This family of models allows testing contrasting hypotheses on mode of speciation, trait evolution, and its influence on speciation/extinction regimes

We present a method that models the geographic distribution of extinct species and we quantify the potential inaccuracy in ancestral range estimation when extinction rates are above zero.

We describe an algorithm for generating randomised species occurrence points that mimic the within- and between-species spatial structure of real datasets and implement it in a new R package

We find strong support for a model in which passerines diversify at the same rate in the highlands and the lowlands but in which the per-capita rate of dispersal from high to low elevations is more than twice as fast as that in the reverse direction

Abrupt climatic fluctuations during the Miocene (ca. 19-17 Ma) likely fragmented ancestral populations, resulting in at least eight early-divergent lineages. Only one of these lineages appears to have diversified during the drastic climate and biome changes of the early Miocene, radiating into the largest group of extant species.

We conducted spatially explicit simulations under a neutral model of range evolution, speciation and extinction for three different geological scenarios that differed in their geological histories

Our results suggest that abiotic factors might be responsible for morphological differences across populations in Hylocharis leucotis being biological interactions of minor importance

We introduce an R package (SecSSE: Several examined and concealed States-dependent Speciation and Extinction) to simultaneously infer state dependent diversification across two or more examined (observed) traits or states while accounting for the role of a possible concealed (hidden) trait.

We used an evolutionary approach to test whether body mass is a good predictor of two of the main ecological features of hummingbirds: their abundances and behavioral dominance

We show how local ecological limits, by regulating opportunities for range expansion and thus rates of speciation and extinction, lead to temporal slowdowns in diversification and predictable differences in equilibrium diversity between regions

Quaternary climate oscillations and concurrent habitat fragmentation and defaunation of megafaunal frugivores in the New World have reduced seed dispersal distances and geographical ranges of palms with megafaunal fruits, resulting in their extinction.

 The average morphological distance between species was reduced, and the volume (the total extent of trait space) was expanded with the arrival of migrants, indicating that newcomers occupy the periphery and the interior of the available ecological space

We extensively monitored the migratory behaviour of this species near a wind farm in the Tehuantepec Isthmus during the spring of 2008, 2009, and 2011. Specifically we recorded bird numbers, the height at which birds flew, and environmental variables.

The lack of a phylogenetic signal for the traits evaluated implies differences in digestive physiology and diet in closely related species

We modified the widely used phylogenetic relatedness (NRI) measurement to define a metric that depicts competition strength (via phylogenetic similarity), which one focal species confronts in its environment. This new approach (NRIfocal) measures the potential of the community structure effect over performance of a single species.

We recorded three polar coordinates for the flight path of migrating soaring birds that were detected using marine radar, plotted the flight trajectories and estimated the number of trajectories that intersected the polygon defined by the wind turbines of focal wind farm

We found that birds more likely to fly in the risk zone tend to be smaller, with longer wings, and with heavier wing loadings. Birds flying in the risk zone tend to be related to each other, but species that actually collide with turbines belong to several separate clades

 Our results also suggest that wind farms have a greater effect on wintering migrants than on residents