Dissertation Research: An Analysis of Diversification in Neritopsine Gastropods: Evidence from Phylogeography and Paleontology

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding the processes that shape biodiversity requires multiple lines of evidence, including those from paleobiology, ecology, population genetics, biogeography, and phylogenetics. I will use a powerful technique, known as phylogeography, that employs many of these lines to investigate which processes have been most important in generating diversity in a group of gastropods known as the Neritopsina. I will be testing whether or not species that are distributed in space with geographic barriers separating them show more genetic divergence between populations than species that have no barriers between populations. I will then combine this information with data from their evolutionary relationships and fossil record to test whether or not this divergence at the population level is manifested as significant diversity at the species level. As biodiversity is a dynamic process, with populations and species in a constant state of flux, it is necessary to understand how diversity is generated in order to make informed conservation decisions. By understanding how geographic distribution has affected the evolutionary history of these gastropods, we may better understand which processes need to be conserved in order to ensure that diversity remains relatively stable through time. Instead of focusing solely on the current state of these gastropod species, I will be examining how we might better ensure that they are allowed to continue to maintain and generate diversity in the millennia to come.