First meeting: 16.-20.10.2017

PIs:
Allen Hurlbert
Catherine Graham

iDiv member:
Thorsten Wiegand

Project summary:
Latitudinal gradients are among the most striking global biodiversity patterns, but there is still no agreement about their origin. We will use a flexible simulation framework to confront alternative hypotheses about which mechanisms influenced the gradients, and then evaluate these using empirical data. This attempt to solve an old conundrum of ecology will require communication among scientists of diverse backgrounds, combining expertise on how ecological, evolutionary, and historical processes shape biodiversity patterns. The working group will identify empirical patterns that are decisive to distinguish alternative hypotheses, and use them to provide the greatest synthesis to date of the drivers of global diversity gradients.

Participants:
Lynsey Bunnefeld (University of Stirling); Rampal Etienne (University of Groningen); Susanne Fritz Senckenberg (Biodiversity & Climate Research Centre (BiK-F)); Rosemary Gillespie (University of California Berkeley); Catherine Graham (Swiss Federal Research Institute (WSL)); Florian Hartig (University of Regensburg); Shan Huang (Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre); Allen Hurlbert (University of North Carolina); Roland Jansson (Umeå University); Odile Maliet (IBENS); Mikael Pontarp (Zurich University); Thiago Rangel (Federal University of Goiás); Juliano Sarmento Cabral (University of Würzburg); David Storch (Charles University); Thorsten Wiegand (UFZ)

Second meeting: 11.-15.06.2018

Participants:
Rampal Etienne (University of Groningen); Susanne Fritz (Senckenberg Biodiversity & Climate Research Centre (BiK-F)); Catherine Graham (Swiss Federal Research Institute (WSL)); Oskar Hagen (WSL and ETH Zürich); Florian Hartig (University of Regensburg); Hanno Hildenbrandt (University of Groningen); Shan Huang (Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre); Allen Hurlbert (University of North Carolina); Roland Jansson (Umeå University); Tamara Münkemüller (Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine (LECA)  UMR CNRS-UGA); Mikael Pontarp (Zurich University); Thiago Rangel (Federal University of Goiás); Juliano Sarmento Cabral (University of Würzburg); David Storch (Charles University); Thorsten Wiegand (UFZ)