Concordia University
Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Pedro Peres-Neto
Steven Kembel
Start: 2016-09-05
End: 2024-11-22

Project

Climatic Drivers of Biodiversity: Influence on Ecophylogenetics and Specialization Across Spatial Scales
Climate plays a critical role in shaping the diversity, structure, and evolutionary history of ecological communities across spatial and temporal scales. In my thesis, I investigate how three dimensions of climate—average, variability, and frequency across space—determine the phylogenetic structure and climatic specialization of biological communities worldwide, first focusing on bats and then on tetrapods more broadly. In the first chapter, I explore how historical and contemporary processes, such as palaeoclimatic stability, geographical isolation, and local diversification rates, influence the global phylogenetic structure of bat communities. The findings reveal that stable climates since the Last Glacial Maximum have promoted phylogenetic clustering, while geographical isolation and varying diversification rates further shape community structure across different scales. In the second chapter, I examine the underexplored role of the spatial frequency of climate—how often specific climatic conditions occur across space—on specialization within ecological communities. Through a combination of global empirical analyses of tetrapod distributions and theoretical simulations, I demonstrate that rare climates limit specialization, favouring the coexistence of generalists and specialists, whereas common climates promote specialization in tetrapod communities. Finally, in the third chapter, I investigate how climatic commonness and rarity influence the phylogenetic structure and suitability of tetrapod communities. Rare climates are less supportive of closely related species, with recent ecological dynamics playing a more significant role than deep evolutionary constraints. Overall, my thesis provides a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted role of climate in shaping biodiversity, offering valuable insights into biodiversity responses to climatic variation, including ongoing rapid climate change.

Keywords

community ecology, community phylogenetics, biogeography, comparative methods, species distribution models, macroecology, spatial and temporal gradients, Spatial Ecology, phylogenetic comparative methods, scale dependence, climate

Publications

1- Life history traits modulate the influence of environmental stressors on biodiversity: The case of fireflies, climate and artificial light at night
Khattar, Gabriel, Stephanie Vaz, Pedro Henrique Pereira Braga, Margarete Macedo, Luiz Felipe Lima da Silveira,
2022 Diversity and Distributions

2- The spatial frequency of climatic conditions affects niche composition and functional diversity of species assemblages: the case of Angiosperms
Fournier, Bertrand, Héctor Vázquez‐Rivera, Sylvie Clappe, Louis Donelle, Pedro Henrique Pereira Braga, Pedro R. Peres‐Neto,
2019 Ecology Letters

3- Historical and contemporary processes drive global phylogenetic structure across geographical scales: Insights from bat communities
Braga, Pedro Henrique Pereira, Steven Kembel, Pedro Peres‐Neto
2023 Global Ecology and Biogeography

4- Not just for programmers: How GitHub can accelerate collaborative and reproducible research in ecology and evolution
Braga, Pedro Henrique Pereira, Katherine Hébert, Emma J. Hudgins, Eric R. Scott, Brandon P. M. Edwards, Luna L. Sánchez Reyes, Matthew J. Grainger, Vivienne Foroughirad, Friederike Hillemann, Allison D. Binley, Cole B. Brookson, Kaitlyn M. Gaynor, Saeed Shafiei Sabet, Ali Güncan, Helen Weierbach, Dylan G. E. Gomes, Robert Crystal‐Ornelas
2023 Methods in Ecology and Evolution

5- Global patterns of phylogenetic beta diversity components in bats
Peixoto, Franciele P., Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Marcus Vinicius Cianciaruso, José Alexandre F. Diniz-Filho, Daniel Brito,
2014 Journal of Biogeography

6- A synthesis of ecological and evolutionary determinants of bat diversity across spatial scales
Peixoto, Franciele Parreira, Pedro Henrique Pereira Braga, Poliana Mendes
2018 BMC Ecology