Colouration biodiversity within and across environments: an example from the adaptive radiation of fire salamanders
Dr Kathryn Elmer
Royal Society
2014
Managing biodiversity's response to environmental change in Europe and the UK can only be informed by detailed analysis of the conditions that promoted and maintain it. Salamander colouration is tightly correlated with past and present environment and is a model for evolutionary response to changes such as those predicted under climate change and landscape alteration. This research will provide new data on environmental correlates and spatial distributions of rare phenotypic variants in an adaptive radiation. It will also have conservation applications for rare, endemic biodiversity in Europe.