Current Projects

NSF. Population & Evolutionary Processes: Genomics of Repeatedly Evolving Color Diversity in the Polymorphic Hawaiian Happy Face Spider. R Gillespie, P. Croucher, D. Cotoras, M. Eisen, N. Patel, G. Oxford

• A major challenge in evolutionary biology is to understand the molecular basis of diversification. Making the most of recent advances in comparative genomics, the research here focuses on the exuberantly patterned Hawaiian happy face spider which displays a visible and balanced genetic color polymorphism, and in which the mode of inheritance of the color polymorphism has changed between islands in the Hawaiian chain. Accordingly, despite similar sets and frequencies of color forms across islands, the diversity has arisen independently on different islands. The research will identify the genomic basis for the differences between islands, and hence the mechanism through which color diversity is recreated.  The project uses genome-wide sequence scanning, linkage mapping, and candidate genes. The research will provide insights into how diversity is created during evolutionary history, while allowing generation of the first body of genome sequence and data on expressed genes for any spider. The system of visible and genetically controlled color polymorphism in spiders also provides an ideal mechanism for teaching of complex concepts in genetics and molecular evolution and hence an understanding how evolution works. Parallel systems to that of the Hawaiian happy face spider occur elsewhere (including California), allowing the development of teaching tools using local spiders

France Berkeley Fund: Community Assembly on Islands: Role of Random versus Deterministic Effects. R Gillespie, C. Thébaud, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse

• Community assembly (i.e. species presence, absence, and abundance) forms a cornerstone of biodiversity science, yet remains poorly understood. For many years, scientists argued that communities are stable groups of coexisting species whose membership and abundance are dictated by functional traits that determine how species interact with each other and the environment (i.e. their niches). This classical view of communities, the niche assembly perspective, contrasts with a recent thesis showing that many of the biodiversity patterns we see today can be explained by "neutral" processes, rather than by complex niche and competition mechanisms. In this view, the dispersal assembly perspective, communities are steady-state equilibria of transient species, whose abundance is governed by random drift and a balance between speciation, migration and extinction. The new theory has generated a proliferation of studies to test dispersal assembly as a null hypothesis for variation in species abundance. Distinguishing between these viewpoints in practice has been challenging, as equivalent spatial patterns can be generated by both processes. We propose to evaluate the importance of these two competing hypotheses using two island systems which, taken together, allow us to separate out niche parameters (environmental heterogeneity) from dispersal parameters that are dictated by geographic distance.

NSF. Biodiversity Surveys and Inventories: Terrestrial arthropods of French Polynesia. R Gillespie, N Evenhuis, J Liebherr, D Polhemus, G Roderick

• The islands of French Polynesia include some of the most isolated archipelagos in the world. This grant is to survey the arthropod fauna of the high islands, with emphasis on the native fauna, which is generally confined to middle/high elevations. Because of their isolation, the islands of French Polynesia, like those of the Hawaiian chain, can serve as microcosms, allowing unique insights into studies of diversification of terrestrial arthropods, community assembly and ecosystem processes. Also like Hawaii, the islands (at least the Societies and Marquesas) are arranged in chronological order, a feature that provides a time frame within which to examine the evolutionary process. Moreover, because these islands harbor a similar series of invasive species to those in Hawaii, with the impacts (where known) being yet more severe, it will be possible to elucidate common parameters underlying invasions and their impacts in the different islands systems.

National Science Foundation: PBI (Planetary Biodiversity Inventory): The megadiverse, microdistributed spider family Oonopidae, N.I. Platnick (PI), R. Gillespie, C. Griswold, G. Hormiga, P. Sierwald

• Many generalizations about the distribution of life on earth, including biodiversity hotspots, are based largely on what we know about vertebrates and green plants. For historical biogeography, and for conservation purposes, it is microdistributed groups, containing species with the smallest range sizes, that offer maximal potential information. As one of the few megadiverse, microdistributed groups whose species and literature are fully cataloged, spiders are excellent candidates for a PBI project. The focus of this PBI is the dwarf hunting spiders of the family Oonopidae.

NSF. GK-12: Exploring California Biodiversity. R Gillespie, D Lindberg, C Moritz, M Power, G Roderick (for D Dahlsten)

• The primary goal of our project is to inspire in urban children an appreciation for the overwhelming diversity of life and a recognition that biodiversity is not confined to the rainforests of exotic places, but exists even within their own school yards. This project develops a learning community among graduate student fellows, classroom teachers, and their students that focuses on understanding the natural environment. Graduate fellows associated with UC Berkeley Natural History Museums (BNHM) work with middle and high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area using the facilities and resources of the BNHM and the Berkeley Natural History Field Stations. The program involves field trips, the building and studying of natural history collections in the K–12 schools, additional study of BNHM collections, and the use of interpretive tools.

Recent Projects

NSF Biodiversity Surveys and Inventories & Schlinger Foundation: Terrestrial arthropod survey - Fiji. N. Evenhuis, D. Bickel, M. Irwin, D. Olson, D. Polhemus.

• The islands of Fiji have a rich and interesting biota, which likely reflects the complex geological history of the islands.

National Geographic Society: Spiders of the high islands of eastern Micronesia, R.Gillespie & D. Buden

• The islands of Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae in eastern Micronesia were formed initially by volcanic activity. Insect surveys to date have shown a pattern of high endemism, particularly on Pohnpei, attenuated on Kosrae. Patterns of diversity among spiders on these islands are largely unknown. This project focuses on high elevation habitats and on groups of spiders known to be diverse elsewhere in the insular Pacific.

National Science Foundation. Biological Research Collections: Essig Museum of Entomology Relocation, R.Gillespie

• The goal of this project is to move the collection alongside the other Berkeley Natural History Museums in the Valley Life Science Building (VLSB) on the UC Berkeley campus. We now have recently found new space adjacent to the UC Museum of Paleontology that will be ideal for the Essig because (i) it would be adjacent to the other museums, making it the logical place for a research facility, providing access to students and faculty; (ii) the bottom floor is the only floor that allows compacterization.

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), DIGIT Seed Money. Invasion Biology of Insects--Collections and Data. G Roderick, J Deck, R Gillespie

UC Agricultural Experiment Station. Systematic and Biodiversity Studies of Spiders. R.G. Gillespie.

NSF. Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology: Ecology, evolution, and conservation biology in the Pacific.

• We have been encouraging Pacific Island students to join research labs as interns at the University of Hawaii, both Manoa and Hilo campuses. (PIs Michael G. Hadfield and Bob Richmond, from the University of Hawaii, Manoa, seen here on a visit to the College of Micronesia in Pohnpei). Program currently based entirely at the University of Hawaii Manoa, Chaminade (Gail Grabowsky) and Hilo (Don Price). Funded by the National Science Foundation