Matthew McGee

Fellowship: Rocca Dissertation
Fellowship Year: 2025
Project Theme/Title: Community assemblages and species distributions along an elevational gradient in northeastern Madagascar
Abstract: Tropical montane rainforests contain some of the highest rates of biodiversity and endemism among all of Earth’s ecosystems, largely due to the wide range of microhabitats created by the variation in topographic and climatic conditions. There are often notable differences in these conditions within relatively short elevational distances, thus presenting unique opportunities to study the mechanisms that drive variation in species distribution and community assemblages. These mechanisms may include resource availability, habitat structure and niche partitioning, physiological responses to abiotic conditions, and biotic interactions such as predation or competition. If these mechanisms are only broadly defined for multiple species within the same ecological community, the resiliency of that community to environmental changes becomes more uncertain, particularly in ecosystems like tropical montane forests that are highly sensitive to shifting climatic conditions. Studies that assess broad-scale elevational patterns at more precise
levels could help us identify the specific mechanisms that drive species distributions and, in turn, provide more certainty on how ecological communities may respond to environmental changes. I plan to address this for my PhD dissertation by completing the following objectives at Anjanaharibe-Sud Special Reserve in northeastern Madagascar, each of them as a chapter:
1. Characterize how the community assemblages of multiple taxa change along an elevational gradient and evaluate the broad-scale patterns
2. Analyze the specific distributional constraints for each species of a notable bird family
(Vangidae) found at Anjanaharibe-Sud
3. Predict potential changes in community assemblages along the elevational gradient based on the findings from the preceding chapters and changes observed in the past 30 years

Fellowship: Rocca Pre-Dissertation
Fellowship Year: 2024
Project Theme/Title: The ecological impact of anthropogenic disturbances on tropical forests in Madagascar