Phylogenies and community ecology

• Michael J. Donoghue
• Campbell O. Webb

Abstract
There exists a long history in ecology of examining communities in terms of their taxonomic structure (e.g., species/genus ratios), with the expectation that this will shed light on both histori-cal community assembly and contemporary ecological structure. Modern phylogenies now offer far more precision in the analysis of community taxonomic structure, and an increasing number of studies are aimed at incorporating phylogenetic information into community ecology. Con-versely, studies of speciation are increasingly trying to incorporate information about the com-munity context under which lineages separated. The time is ripe for a meeting that draws researchers together, from ecology, phylogenetics and paleobiology, who have considered these issues, but who may not otherwise interact. We thus propose an NCEAS working group focused on the question, ¿¿How can phylogenetic knowl-edge help answer community ecology questions, and vice versa?¿¿ Meetings will be structured to identify answers to this question, and present datasets and analysis tools useful for exploring new avenues. Independent work between meetings would apply these methods, and would be reported at subsequent meetings, and in a final, edited book. We expect that such a working group would catalyze the development of this promising field.