Reef fish communities: phylogenetic patterns and their ecological and evolutionary components

• Grant number: 11/15086-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: September 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Thomas Michael Lewinsohn
• Grantee: Nayara Fernanda Hachich
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 13/10635-3 - Analysis of reef fish community structure of Atlantic Ocean, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Reef ecosystems are among the most diverse marine systems of world and reef fish are its most diverse group of vertebrates. Just a few studies of marine communities had to date incorporated a phylogenetic structure and span a large geographic scale (thousands of km). Phylogenies can help to elucidate determinants of community assembly. The aim of this project is to investigate patterns of Labridae, Pomacentridae and Chaetodontidae reef fish community structure that may derive from historical-evolutionary or from contemporary ecological processes. Analyses will clarify these processes based on phylogenetic relationships of fish species in local communities, using phylogenies both as representations of evolutionary kinship and as proxies for ecological similarity between species, in combination with their known ecological attributes and with environmental parameters. Analyses will use published fish phylogenies and two data sets: 1, transect censuses in three biogeographical provinces, that can be analysed at three spatial scales; 2, species lists of sixteen localities along the Brazilian coast.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

HACHICH, Nayara Fernanda. Spatial structure of reef biodiversity in the Atlantic Ocean. 2014. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia Campinas, SP.