USA - bilateral cooperation: Speciation and Phylogeography of Soil Arthropods in the Mountains (SAPHARI)

The international collaborative project will target selected taxa within the insect order Coleoptera (beetles) to study speciation and phylogeography of soil arthropods in the mountains, using the Southern Appalachians as a model. The project will include the following objectives and address the following questions: - Reveal the main patterns in distribution of soil beetles in the Southern Appalachians - Produce phylogenies and do phylogeographic studies of selected taxa - Prepare taxonomic revisions of s elected taxa - Identify major barriers affecting species distribution. Have such barriers worked as isolating mechanisms leading to speciation? Are these barriers the same for all groups? - Among groups with similar distribution there are those represente d by single species with multiple isolated populations (type I), and those represented by multiple allopatric species (type II). Are phylogeographic patterns the same in both types? Why some groups speciated while others did not? Is isolation between diff erent populations of the same species (type I) more recent than isolation between closely related allopatric species (type II)? - Is DNA Barcoding approach to species recognition applicable to taxa with poor dispersal ability and distribution restricted t o mountains? Is there a significant difference between intraspecific and interspecific variation in Barcoding Sequence of COI gene in such taxa? - How climate changes affect distribution of local endemics? What are the implications for conservation? The project will last for 5 years. Funding will be sought both for Ph. D. student and postdoctoral positions. Cooperation will include joint field work, visits of all participants to their respective partner institution, joint analysis and publication of resu lts, and presentations at conferences. A special forum for presentation and discussion of results could be organized (symposium at the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America).