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Integrating Environmental and Population Variation: A Model for Biodiversity Studies (AMBIOS)

The objectives of this project are to determine the interrelationships between the physical properties of ecosystems and the ecology of organisms in the generation of biodiversity, to measure objectively the resultant diversity and to produce operational concepts of biodiversity which are of general applicability and importance. These will be achieved by analysing the dynamics of biodiversity in the rocky intertidal environment using periwinkle snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda) as a study group. The rocky intertidal presents a linear habitat subdivided into a number of patches. The pronounced and compressed environmental gradient from fully marine at low water to fully terrestrial at high water provides a unique continuum of physically changing habitat. It is, therefore, a most appropriate environment in which to conduct this research. Furthermore, periwinkles are ecologically important structuring agents in the intertidal and provide the range of population genetic structures and life history strategies which are needed for this study. These organisms thus provide a model on which to base generalisations about the dynamics of biodiversity and its links with the properties of ecosystems.

Areas of study:

  1. The relationships between breeding ecology, niche width and biogeographic range, and their bearing on the future dynamics of biodiversity at a time of accelerating environmental change and extinction will be studied.
  2. The development of operational concepts for assessing and describing the very basis of biodiversity will be established This will involve evaluating and comparing phenotypic and genotypic features as measures of the buffering capacity of the components of biodiversity with respect to changing environmental factors, and will be achieved by focusing on genetic heterogeneity levels and phenotypic responses in relation to the environment, and on thermal tolerance.
  3. The determination of the mechanisms involved in the transition from polymorphic, interbreeding populations to those of species status, and the elucidation of how such changes can be distinguished from phenotypic plasticity, will be addressed.
  4. Techniques for the identification of species and 'lower' taxonomic units will be developed, and new molecular methods tested in those species in which the levels of polymorphism are high.

Permanent Staff

The University of Leeds

Regional Technical College, Galway Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen The University of the Azores

Staff appointed (fully funded from project funds)

The University of Leeds

Regional Technical College, Galway Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen The University of the Azores

PUBLICATIONS

  1. DE WOLF, H., BACKELJAU, T., MEDEIROS, R. & VERHAGEN, R. (in press). Microgeographical shell variation in Littorina striata, a planktonic developing periwinkle. - Marine Biology.
  2. WINNEPENNINCKX, B. & BACKELJAU, T. (in press) Amplification of short tandem repeat (STR) loci: the performance of different polymerases and radionucleotides. - - BioTechniques.
  3. MEDEIROS, R., SERPA, L., BRITO, C., DE WOLF, H., JORDAENS, K., WINNEPENNINCKX, B. & BACKELJAU, T. (in press). Radular myoglobin and protein variation within and among some littorinid species (Mollusca: Gastropoda). - Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Littorinid Biology.
  4. OLABARRIA, C., TIMMERMANS, J.-M. & BACKELJAU, T. (in press). Electrophoretic heterogeneity within and between flat periwinkles along an intertidal transect at Ria Ferrol, NW Spain (Mollusca: Gastropoda). - Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Littorinid Biology.
  5. WILDING, C.S., GRAHAME, J. & MILL, P.J. (in press) Rough periwinkle polymorphism on the east coast of Yorkshire: comparison of RAPD-DNA data with morphotype. Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Littorinid Biology.
  6. BLACK, D.H., GRAHAME, J. & MILL, P.J. (in press) Gills and size in some small Littorina. Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Littorinid Biology.
  7. GOSLING, E.M., WILSON, I.F. & ANDREWS, J. (in press) Genetic differentiation in Littorina saxatilis: Littorina tenebrosa Montagu - a valid species or ecotype? Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Littorinid Biology.
  8. WILSON, I.F. & GOSLING, E.M. (in press) Genetic variability in Littorina saxatilis from different habitats on an island in Galway Bay. Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Littorinid Biology.
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