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Understanding And Predicting The Distribution Of Biodiversity In The Atlantic Forest, Andrea Paz Velez
Understanding And Predicting The Distribution Of Biodiversity In The Atlantic Forest, Andrea Paz Velez
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Understanding how biodiversity is distributed in geography is essential for conservation. This requires an understanding of the multiple dimensions of biodiversity: species, their ecological functions, and their evolutionary history. For my Ph.D. dissertation, I devised a study to explore the environmental drivers of biodiversity patterns in Neotropical species. I first investigated broad macroecological patterns in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, combining occurrence data and phylogenetic information from multiple clades of animals and plants (Chapter 1). I discovered that one can accurately predict the accumulation of species richness and phylogenetic diversity based on current climatic descriptors – particularly precipitation – but not …