Sentinel organisms provide helpful guidelines for conservation and management. They can be used to assess ecosystem or environmental integrity and to identify and prioritize biodiversity hotspot regions. The spider infraorder Mygalomorphae is exceptionally well-suited for monitoring conservation status of terrestrial ecosystems in the Meditteranean basin. They exhibit high habitat fidelity, limited potential for dispersal and restricted distributional ranges. Moreover, they are abundantly present in most Mediterranean habitats. Biologists, however, have long overlooked mygalomorph spiders due to their secretive habits and challenging taxonomy. The promising use of these spiders as bioindicators is therefore not fully developed. Here we propose to overcome these limitations by undertaking and ambitious multidisciplinary research utilizing mygalomorphs as a model system to study the processes underpinning Mediterranean biodiversity. Specifically, we will investigate population structure and demographic processes in the mygalomorph spider with the largest geographical and latitudinal range in Europe, Atypus affinis, and will characterize factors promoting speciation in the highly diverse Mediterranean Nemesiidae. GIS and novel molecular tools will be further use to investigate niche segregation at local scale in sympatric species of Nemesiidae. We will also identify endemism hotspots in the Iberian Peninsula and will use phylogenetic diversity to prioritize areas for conservation, as inferred from the phylogenetic interrelationships and potential distributions of Mediterranean Nemesiidae. Because of narrow ecological preferences and long life cycles, Mygalomorphs are particularly vulnerable to extinction. We will combine population genetic tools with ecological modelling techniques to identify demographic history of the protected spider Macrothele calpeiana, and the Canarian endemic Titanidiops canariensis, and will predict future effect of global warming on the distribution and viability of these species. We are fully committed to overcome traditional barriers to the diffusion of scientific research. In this regard, our alliance with a public natural history institution will facilitate transfer of knowledge to society through a variety of activities. We anticipate that results of our research will be relevant for conservation, management, and sustainable use of natural landscapes in the Mediterranean basin

Earth climate is changing at a global scale as a result of human activity. Such changes have tremendous consequences for human societies by increasing natural catastrophes and by causing profound modifications on ecosystems that are essential for human survival. From a biological conservation standpoint, global climate change has come to accelerate the rate of destruction of biodiversity. An extremely dynamic geological history and climatic oscillations caused by earth’s movement across the solar system have shaped Mediterranean ecosystems and have converted this region in one of the planetary hot-spots of biodiversity. Unfortunately, overpopulation and a long-history of human occupation have had a deep impact on Mediterranean biological communities and have brought many endemics to the verge of extinction. The study of the past effect of climatic changes on the Mediterranean biota, namely the Pleistocene ice-ages, may shade light on the future impact of global warming on current ecosystems and can help to predict the sensitivity of particular areas to such changes. Modern molecular techniques are powerful tools for the study of the factors that shaped species relationships and population structure and provide the temporal framework for the occurrence of evolutionary events. The ground spider genera Harpactocrates and Parachtes provide an excellent model for the study of the effect of past climatic changes on the origin and shaping of biodiversity in the Western Mediterranean. They are both endemic to the region, and their species have high-elevation, non-overlapping distributions across major cordilleras in the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas, the Alps and the larger Islands of the region. We suggest that the diversity and distribution ranges of these genera are mostly the result of Pleistocene climatic oscillations and post-Oligocene tectonic movements. We propose to study these spider genera to identify the factors that promoted their diversification and to generate a precise temporal framework for the occurrence of such events. The results of this research will have important implications for the understanding of the origins of our biodiversity and for its conservation. Moreover, we will provide the scientific community with information to calibrate molecular clocks for studies in spiders or the Mediterranean region

DNA barcoding techniques have revolutionized taxonomy and its applications. A short nucleotide sequence can be used as a species identifier, in an analogous manner as commercial barcodes define products. This technique allows the fast processing of a large quantity of simples, the rapid dissemination of information and the easy access to this information by non-specialist. In this project we propose to extend the use of DNA barcodes to the inventorying and richness estimation of megadiverse groups in tropical regions. The study focuses in three arthropod groups with diverse life cycles (spiders, water beetles and membracid planthoppers) in 5 localities in a transect along the Panama Isthmus. This setting will be used to catalog and estimate specific richness, complementarity and genetic connectedness of the selected regions. The characterization of biodiversity will improve protection and management of these regions and will facilitate sustainable development of natural areas of Panama. This project will provide a better knowledge about Neotropical diversity and the geological and environmental variables that shape its distribution

In collaboration with terrestrial isopod specialist Dr. Stefano Taiti (Italy), I have been working in the evolution of terrestriality in the Hawaiian species of the isopod genus Ligia. More recently, we have extended our analysis to include all the representatives of this world-wide distributed genus, which has revealed extremely interesting biogeographic and evolutionary patterns