Taiwan

The island of Taiwan is located at a tectonic transition zone between an arc-continental collision and an intra-oceanic subduction zone. This  provides an opportunity to study transient mountain building in a small, young orogenic wedge and link physical processes with aquatic biodiversity patterns. As an island Taiwan has the opportunity for many endemic species to evolve in isolation following initial colonization.

Carolin Krug is a doctoral student focusing on coupling physical processes with biodiversity patterns in Taiwan. She is clarifying previous  geomorphic and tectonic observations by exploring the problem of advection of the main divide of the central range of the island and model this process and its impact on transience in the ecological parameters important to specific biological groups (fish, invertebrates, and amphibians).