Integrating physiological, ecological and evolutionary processes for comprehension of populational and species' responses to environmental changes

• Grant number: 17/10338-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): November 01, 2017
• Effective date (End): January 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Physiology of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Arturo Navas Iannini
• Grantee: Rafael Parelli Bovo
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/16320-7 - Impacts of climate/environmental change on the fauna: an integrative approach, AP.PFPMCG.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 19/04637-0 - Integrating biological information in models predicting climate change impacts on amphibians, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The lack of a physiological approach is one of the main difficulties in predicting the ecological and biogeographic effects of climate change. In fact, scaling physiological processes into macroecological patterns, as a fundamental component of the theoretical underpinnings of ecology and biogeography, have proved a challenging task. Not surprisingly, a vigorous study theme in ecology and evolutionary biology is on how to integrate physiological traits, as well as better parameterization of all the characteristics considered fundamental, for the comprehension of requirements and limiting mechanisms related to the species' occurrence in the habitat/environment. Revisiting current biological theories in the literature, I intend here to investigate, detect and characterize the mechanism and the outcomes of populational (intraspecific) and species' (interspecific) responses to environmental/climatic conditions (e.g., under environmental gradients), and also predict the type and magnitude of physio-ecological and evolutionary changes may occur in the future under environmental changes. Due to particular traits such as ectothermy, highly permeable skin, and limited dispersion ability, amphibians are especially susceptible to changes in environmental/climatic parameters and, therefore, useful study models. I offer here an interdisciplinary investigation combining correlative analyzes with alternative approaches, such as physiological experimentation under the same protocol, conceptual or mathematical models (including simulations) as a means to link lower level processes (e.g., physiological, morphological and interactions) into broad-scale patterns (geographic distribution, phenotypical plasticity/acclimatization). Hence, it will be possible to discriminate potential mechanisms that affect the distribution and underlying responses of a particularly vulnerable and diverse group from the Brazilian fauna to environmental/climatic changes.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

DE OLIVEIRA ANDERSON, RODOLFO CESAR; BOVO, RAFAEL PARELLI; ANDRADE, DENIS VIEIRA. Seasonal variation in the thermal biology of a terrestrial toad, Rhinella icterica (Bufonidae), from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Journal of Thermal Biology, v. 74, p. 77-83, MAY 2018. (13/04190-9, 10/20061-6, 14/05624-5, 17/10338-0)

GOUVEIA, SIDNEY F.; BOVO, RAFAEL P.; RUBALCABA, JUAN G.; DA SILVA, FERNANDO RODRIGUES; MACIEL, NATAN M.; ANDRADE, DENIS V.; MARTINEZ, PABLO ARIEL. Biophysical Modeling of Water Economy Can Explain Geographic Gradient of Body Size in Anurans. American Naturalist, v. 193, n. 1, p. 51-58, JAN 1 2019. (12/07356-2, 14/05624-5, 13/50714-0, 13/04190-9, 10/20061-6, 17/10338-0)

BOVO, RAFAEL P.; NAVAS, CARLOS A.; TEJEDO, MIGUEL; VALENCA, SAULO E. S.; GOUVEIA, SIDNEY F.. Ecophysiology of Amphibians: Information for Best Mechanistic Models. Diversity, v. 10, n. 4, DEC 2018. (10/20061-6, 14/16320-7, 14/05624-5, 17/10338-0)