Marcel Cardillo
ARC QEII Fellow, Research School of Biology, ANU
marcel.cardillo@anu.edu.au
Research Interests
I work on a range of questions in community ecology, macroecology, macroevolution and conservation biology, mostly using a comparative or modelling approach. Most of my research has a phylogenetic perspective. Phylogenies can reveal more than just evolutionary relationships: they also carry information on ecological and evolutionary processes, and can be a powerful tool for analyzing comparative data. Some current and recent projects include:
Why is southwestern
Phylogenetic structure of island mammal faunas
Islands are natural laboratories for the study of species coexistence and community assembly. This project investigates whether the ecological and evolutionary processes by which island mammal assemblages are formed leave predictable signatures in the mammal phylogeny.
Extinction risk in the world’s mammals
Why are some species more threatened with extinction than others? This project has brought together large databases of mammal phylogeny, geographic distributions and biological traits to investigate the correlates of current extinction risk, and to make predictions about the future of mammal biodiversity.
A phylogenetic supertree of mammals
This was a large collaborative project to construct the first dated, species-level phylogeny of the world’s mammals, by combining over 2500 partial phylogenies using “supertree” methods. We have used this tree to explore patterns of mammal diversification through time, and as a resource for a wide range of other evolutionary and ecological studies.
Publications
Journal Articles
Cardillo, M. & Meijaard, E. (in press) Phylogeny and the co-occurrence of mammals on southeast Asian islands. Global Ecology & Biogeography
Bielby, J., Cardillo, M., Cooper, N., Purvis, A. (2009) Modelling extinction risk in multispecies datasets: phylogenetically independent contrasts vs. decision trees. Biodiversity & Conservation
Diniz-Filho J.A.F., Rodríguez M.A., Bini L.M., Olalla-Tarraga M.A., Cardillo M., Nabout J.C., Hortal J. & Hawkins B.A. (2009) Climate history, human impacts and global body size of carnivora at multiple evolutionary scales. Journal of Biogeography 36: 2222-2236
Jones K.E., Bielby, J., M. Cardillo, Fritz, S.A., O’Dell, J., Orme, C.D.L., Safi, K., Sechrest, W., Boakes, E.H., Carbone, C., Connolly, C., Cutts, M.J., Foster, J.K., Grenyer, R., Habib, M., Plaster, C.A., Price, S.A., Rigby, E.A., Rist, J., Teacher, A., Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Gittleman, J.L., Mace, G.M. & Purvis, A. (2009) PanTHERIA: A species-level database of life history, ecology and geography of extant and recently extinct mammalian species. Ecology 90: 2648
Davies, T.J., Fritz, S.A., Grenyer, R., Orme, C.D.L., Bielby, J., Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Cardillo, M., Jones, K.E., Gittleman, J.L., Mace, G.M. & Purvis, A. (2008) Phylogenetic trees and the future of mammalian biodiversity. Proceedings of the National
Cardillo, M., Gittleman, J.L., & Purvis, A. (2008) Global patterns in the phylogenetic structure of island mammal assemblages. Proceedings of the Royal Society,
Cardillo, M., Mace, G.M., Gittleman, J.L., Jones, K.E., Bielby, J. & Purvis, A. (2008) The predictability of extinction: biological and external correlates of decline in mammals. Proceedings of the Royal Society,
Bromham, L. & Cardillo, M. (2007) Primates follow the “island rule”: implications for interpreting Homo floresiensis. Biology Letters 3: 398-400 PDF
Bielby, J., Mace, G.M., Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Cardillo, M., Gittleman, J.L., Jones, K.E., Orme, C.D.L., Purvis, A. (2007) The fast-slow continuum in mammalian life history: an empirical re-evaluation. American Naturalist 169: 748-757 PDF
Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Cardillo, M., Jones, K.E., MacPhee, R.D.E., Beck, R.M.D., Grenyer, R., Price, S.A., Vos, R., Gittleman, J.L. & Purvis, A. (2007) The delayed rise of present-day mammals. Nature 446: 507-512 PDF
Beck , R.M.D., Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Cardillo, M., Liu, F.R. & Purvis, A. (2006) A higher-level MRP supertree of placental mammals. BMC Evolutionary Biology 6:93 PDF
Cardillo, M. (2006) Disappearing forests and biodiversity loss: which areas should we protect? International Forestry Review 8: 251-256 (invited contribution) PDF
Cardillo, M., Mace, G.M., Gittleman, J.L. & Purvis, A. (2006) Latent extinction risk and the future battlegrounds of mammal conservation. Proceedings of the National
Cardillo, M., Mace, G.M., Jones, K.E., Bielby, J., Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Sechrest, W., Orme, C.D.L. & Purvis, A. (2005) Multiple causes of high extinction risk in large mammal species. Science 309: 1239-1241 PDF
Cardillo, M., Orme, D. & Owens, I.P.F. (2005) Testing for latitudinal bias in rates of species diversification: an example using
Cardillo, M., Purvis, A., Sechrest, W., Gittleman, J.L., Bielby, J. and Mace, G.M. (2004) Human population density and extinction risk in the World’s carnivores. PLoS Biology 2: 909-914 PDF
Cardillo, M., Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Boakes, L., and Purvis, A. (2004) A species-level phylogenetic supertree of marsupials. Journal of Zoology,
Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Jones, K.E., Price, S., Grenyer, R., Cardillo, M., Habib, M., Purvis, A. and Gittleman, J. (2003) Supertrees are a necessary not-so-evil: a response to Gatesy et al. Systematic Biology 52: 724-729 PDF
Bromham, L. & Cardillo, M. (2003) Testing the link between the latitudinal gradient in species richness and rates of molecular evolution. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 16: 200-207 PDF
Cardillo, M., Huxtable, J.S. and Bromham, L. (2003) Geographic range size, life history and rates of diversification in Australian mammals. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 16: 282-288 PDF
Cardillo, M. (2003) Biological determinants of extinction risk: why are smaller species less vulnerable? Animal Conservation 6: 63-69 PDF
Cardillo, M. & Lister, A.M. (2002) Death in the slow lane. Nature 419: 440-441 (news & views) PDF
Cardillo, M. (2002) The life-history basis of latitudinal diversity gradients: how do species traits vary from the poles to the equator? Journal of Animal Ecology 71: 79-87. PDF
Cardillo, M. (2002) Body size and latitudinal gradients in regional diversity of
Cardillo, M. & Bromham, L. (2001) Body size and risk of extinction in Australian mammals. Conservation Biology 15: 1435-1440 PDF
Cardillo, M. (1999) Latitude and rates of diversification in birds and butterflies. Proceedings of the Royal Society,
Cardillo, M., Macdonald, D.W. and Rushton, S.P. (1999) Predicting mammal species richness and distributions: testing the effectiveness of satellite-derived land cover data. Landscape Ecology 14: 423-435 PDF
Bromham L., Cardillo, M., Bennett A.F and Elgar M. (1999) Effects of grazing by domestic stock on the ground invertebrate fauna of remnant woodlands. Australian Journal of Ecology 24: 199-208 PDF
Book Chapters
Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Beck, R.M.D., Cardillo, M., Gittleman, J.L., Grenyer, R., Jones, K.E., Mace, G.M.,
Dickman, C.R., Pimm, S. and Cardillo, M. (2007) The pathology of biodiversity loss: the practice of conservation. In: Macdonald, D.W. & Service, K. (eds.) Key Topics in Conservation Biology. pp. 1-16 Blackwell
Purvis, A., Cardillo, M., Grenyer, R. and Collen, B. (2005) Correlates of extinction risk: phylogeny, biology, threat and scale. In: Purvis, A., Brooks, T. & Gittleman, J. (eds.) Phylogeny and Conservation. pp. 295-316
Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Jones, K.E., Price, S., Cardillo, M., Grenyer, R. and Purvis, A. (2004) Garbage in, garbage out: data issues in supertree construction.