Dr Marcel Cardillo QEII Research Fellow Centre for Macroevolution and Macroecology Phone: 61 2 6125 9035 Fax: 61 2 6125 5573 Email: 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 Australia a hotspot of plant biodiversity?
Australia's southwest corner is amazingly rich in plant species, many of which are endemic to the region. We are constructing molecular phylogenies of selected southwest plant genera to investigate patterns of diversification and the coexistence of closely-related species.

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.

PhD & Honours projects
I am happy to talk about possible projects on any of the above or related topics with prospective students. The taxonomic group doesn't matter.

Selected Recent Publications (click here for pdfs)
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. J Biogeography

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. PNAS 105: 11564-11570

Cardillo, M., Gittleman, J.L., & Purvis, A. (2008) Global patterns in the phylogenetic structure of island mammal assemblages. Proc R Soc Lond B 275:1549-1556

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. Proc R Soc Lond B 275: 1441-1448

Bromham, L. & Cardillo, M. (2007) Primates follow the "island rule": implications for interpreting Homo floresiensis. Biology Letters 3: 398-400

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

Cardillo, M., Mace, G.M., Gittleman, J.L. & Purvis, A. (2006) Latent extinction risk and the future battlegrounds of mammal conservation. PNAS 103: 4157-4161

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

Cardillo, M., Orme, D. & Owens, I.P.F. (2005) Testing for latitudinal bias in rates of species diversification: an example using New World birds. Ecology 86: 2278-2287

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