@article{ValentePhillimoreEtienne2015,
  author    = {Valente, Luis M. and Phillimore, Albert B. and Etienne, Rampal S.},
  title     = {Equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics simultaneously operate in the Gal{\´a}pagos islands},
  series = {Ecology letters},
  volume    = {18},
  journal   = {Ecology letters},
  publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {1461-0248},
  doi       = {10.1111/ele.12461},
  pages     = {844 -- 852},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Island biotas emerge from the interplay between colonisation, speciation and extinction and are often the scene of spectacular adaptive radiations. A common assumption is that insular diversity is at a dynamic equilibrium, but for remote islands, such as Hawaii or Gal{\´a}pagos, this idea remains untested. Here, we reconstruct the temporal accumulation of terrestrial bird species of the Gal{\´a}pagos using a novel phylogenetic method that estimates rates of biota assembly for an entire community. We show that species richness on the archipelago is in an ascending phase and does not tend towards equilibrium. The majority of the avifauna diversifies at a slow rate, without detectable ecological limits. However, Darwin's finches form an exception: they rapidly reach a carrying capacity and subsequently follow a coalescent-like diversification process. Together, these results suggest that avian diversity of remote islands is rising, and challenge the mutual exclusivity of the non-equilibrium and equilibrium ecological paradigms.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{ValentePhillimoreEtienne2015,
  author    = {Valente, Luis M. and Phillimore, Albert B. and Etienne, Rampal S.},
  title     = {Equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics simultaneously operate in the Gal{\´a}pagos islands},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-93525},
  pages     = {9},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Island biotas emerge from the interplay between colonisation, speciation and extinction and are often the scene of spectacular adaptive radiations. A common assumption is that insular diversity is at a dynamic equilibrium, but for remote islands, such as Hawaii or Gal{\´a}pagos, this idea remains untested. Here, we reconstruct the temporal accumulation of terrestrial bird species of the Gal{\´a}pagos using a novel phylogenetic method that estimates rates of biota assembly for an entire community. We show that species richness on the archipelago is in an ascending phase and does not tend towards equilibrium. The majority of the avifauna diversifies at a slow rate, without detectable ecological limits. However, Darwin's finches form an exception: they rapidly reach a carrying capacity and subsequently follow a coalescent-like diversification process. Together, these results suggest that avian diversity of remote islands is rising, and challenge the mutual exclusivity of the non-equilibrium and equilibrium ecological paradigms.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Lamanna2015,
  author    = {Lamanna, Francesco},
  title     = {Adaptive radiation and speciation in African weakly-electric fish},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-80097},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {114},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {The rise of evolutionary novelties is one of the major drivers of evolutionary diversification. African weakly-electric fishes (Teleostei, Mormyridae) have undergone an outstanding adaptive radiation, putatively owing to their ability to communicate through species-specific Electric Organ Discharges (EODs) produced by a novel, muscle-derived electric organ. Indeed, such EODs might have acted as effective pre-zygotic isolation mechanisms, hence favoring ecological speciation in this group of fishes. Despite the evolutionary importance of this organ, genetic investigations regarding its origin and function have remained limited. The ultimate aim of this study is to better understand the genetic basis of EOD production by exploring the transcriptomic profiles of the electric organ and of its ancestral counterpart, the skeletal muscle, in the genus Campylomormyrus. After having established a set of reference transcriptomes using "Next-Generation Sequencing" (NGS) technologies, I performed in silico analyses of differential expression, in order to identify sets of genes that might be responsible for the functional differences observed between these two kinds of tissues. The results of such analyses indicate that: i) the loss of contractile activity and the decoupling of the excitation-contraction processes are reflected by the down-regulation of the corresponding genes in the electric organ; ii) the metabolic activity of the electric organ might be specialized towards the production and turnover of membrane structures; iii) several ion channels are highly expressed in the electric organ in order to increase excitability, and iv) several myogenic factors might be down-regulated by transcription repressors in the EO. A secondary task of this study is to improve the genus level phylogeny of Campylomormyrus by applying new methods of inference based on the multispecies coalescent model, in order to reduce the conflict among gene trees and to reconstruct a phylogenetic tree as closest as possible to the actual species-tree. By using 1 mitochondrial and 4 nuclear markers, I was able to resolve the phylogenetic relationships among most of the currently described Campylomormyrus species. Additionally, I applied several coalescent-based species delimitation methods, in order to test the hypothesis that putatively cryptic species, which are distinguishable only from their EOD, belong to independently evolving lineages. The results of this analysis were additionally validated by investigating patterns of diversification at 16 microsatellite loci. The results suggest the presence of a new, yet undescribed species of Campylomormyrus.},
  language  = {en}
}