Predicting functional diversity loss across islands for plants and birds

Although islands only comprise 6.67% of the world's landmass, they play host to a disproportionate 20% of the biodiversity on the planet. Islands support many endemic species - species which have evolved on a particular island or archipelago and are not found elsewhere. The ability of islands to act as isolated natural laboratories has long been a subject of fascination, leading to the development of the well-known Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography. However, although the isolation and fragmentation of islands are conducive to their status as evolutionary hotspots, this, along with the limited area of islands, also contribute to an increased extinction risk.
A particularly understudied yet highly biodiverse archipelago is that of the Indonesian islands in South-East Asia. This archipelago spans two biodiversity hotspots and New Guinea -the most plant species rich island on earth- but its biodiversity is also threatened by one of the globally highest rates of deforestation, driven by the growth of the oil palm and timber industries, and widespread hunting. Only recently have datasets been built to allow a thorough exploration of the current diversity of species and their traits (functional diversity). Functional diversity as a measure of biodiversity is particularly informative on species' roles in ecosystems and their responses to perturbations, including whether they might tolerate climate/habitat alteration.
The project will use this data to build models of Indonesian megadiversity, which will be used to garner understanding of how, where, and why diversity will be lost under future climate and deforestation scenarios. Analysis on the interaction between plants, birds and human impacts will also be scaled up to see how patterns may apply to island archipelagos on a global scale, to potentially inform conservation policy and protect valuable island habitats.