Associate Professor University of Mississippi Oxford, Mississippi
Phylogeographic models are critical foundations for studying evolutionary phenomena in natural populations, but their scope has been limited to the abiotic landscape. Biotic constraints on species' responses to environmental change are potentially very strong, yet it is unknown at what level of co-association this tends to transition to a weak force. In this study system, comparative analyses of congruence in pattern and process among taxa that represent a gradient of ecological co-associations, are being assessed, in order to disentangle the influence of abiotic vs. biotic factors. This overarching question is: at what level of co-association does the 'biotic constraint' on species' responses to environmental change become negligible? Results from five co-distributed deadwood-associated invertebrates (a beetle, termite, cockroach, centipede and millipede) native to the southern Appalachians Mountains and surroundings areas will be presented.
