Interspecific interactions across spatial scales and distributions of intraspecific genetic diversity

Through the WSL Visiting Fellowship, I proposed to develop an integrative framework combining the above lines of research to model species distribution accounting for (1) interspecific interactions across spatial scales (in collaboration with N.E. Zimmermann, L. Pellissier, M. Nobis, M. Moretti and other WSL scientists working on species distribution models) and (2) the distributions of intraspecific genetic diversity (in collaboration with R. Holderegger, F. Gugerli, and other WSL scientists working on phylogeography). While such integration of genetic diversity into species distribution modeling has been proposed by Gotelli & Stanton-Geddes (2015), they did not describe how to achieve it. Nick Zimmermann is currently working on similar issues (Serra-Varela et al. 2015), exploring how phylogeographic structure can reflect climatic niche divergence. Thus, given my research interests and those of several WSL researchers, the proposed framework will help ecologists to better predict species distribution by integrating both intraspecific genetic diversity and species interactions using a spatio-temporal phylogenetic approach. This research is still in progress.

This fellowship-program was involved in the CNRS PICS research exchange program between WSL-SLF and  IGE and Centre d’Etude de la Neige (CEN - MéteoFrance) in Grenoble. Cooperation therefore included Pascal Hagenmuller and Marie Dumont from CEN.