This project allowed Dr. Echeverría to improve new insights into sedimentary DNA analysis (sedaDNA) from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (Argentina) by the coordination of Dra. Moguel, who has an extensive experience in exploring sedaDNA, aDNA and working in metagenomic studies, at UNAM-Juriquilla (Mexico). Palaeoecological studies in Latin-America have provided information about changes in vegetation and climate during the late Quaternary at various spatial and temporal resolutions. Pollen analysis has been the technique commonly used to reconstruct the history of vegetation in Latin-America and to infer the palaeobotanical, palaeoecological and palaeoclimatic history of Quaternary sedimentary sequences. This study of joint research contributes to an overall effort to intensify the collaboration between Argentinian and Mexican researchers in the field of palaeoenvironmental research, with the aim of extending this novel sedaDNA network over Latin America. This opportunity highlights the necessity to join efforts between Latin-American researchers and continue doing high-impact science in multidisciplinary and multi-country projects.

Combining the bioinformatic and conceptual capabilities of both institutions, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina) and the Instituto de Biología of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) it is expected to obtain relevant models to understand the effect of past climate changes on current patterns of global biodiversity, considering all its dimensions. The main goal was evaluating the relationship between phylogenetic diversity and past climate change at different temporal and spatial scales also estimated phylogenetic diversity for three groups of terrestrial vertebrates across the globe (mammals, birds, and amphibians) (results not shown). The main results of these analyzes were reported at the VII Mexican Congress of Ecology during the IAI-PAGES fellowship.