For current BRS seminars, please click here 

 

PREVIOUS SEMINARS

Biodiversity Research Seminars

Spring 2011

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Jan. 12

Warren Allmon

Cornell U

Can paleontologists study speciation?

Leander

Jan. 19

Hopi Hoekstra

Harvard U

Digging for genes underlying behavior in natural populations of mice

Schluter

Jan. 26

Emmett Duffy
Virginia Inst. Marine Science

Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning: Are they important in the real world?

O'Connor

Feb. 2

Evolution Lecture:

Maria Servedio

U North Carolina

 

Grad students

Feb. 9

Forest Rohwer

San Diego State U

Coral reef biodiversity:

You haven't seen anything yet

Keeling

Feb. 16

--

Mid-term Break

--

Feb. 23

Graciela Valladares

U Nacional Cordoba, Argentina

Habitat fragmentation leads to insect-plant food web contraction in a native forest from Central Argentina

Srivastava

Mar. 2

Aneil Agrawal

U Toronto

Testing theory for the evolution of sex: It's more fun in practice

Whitlock

Mar. 8
NOTE: This is Tuesday

Kent Holsinger

U Connecticut

But was it adaptive? Drift and adaptation in the radiation of white proteas

Whitton &
Botany Department

Mar. 16

Julian Olden

U Washington

Freshwater protected areas and the defining of a conservation blueprint for desert fishes

Richardson

Mar. 23

Warwick Vincent

U Laval

Our blue-green Earth: three billion years of cyanobacterial dominance

Suttle

Mar. 30

David Jablonski

U Chicago

 

Otto

Apr. 6

Johanna Schmitt

Brown University

Evolutionary genomics of response to climate change in Arabidopsis thaliana

Rieseberg

 

Fall 2010

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Sept. 15

Sally Otto

UBC

The evolutionary enigma of sex

Otto

Sept. 22

Curtis Suttle

UBC

Viruses: the largest reservoir of genetic diversity on the planet and drivers of global processes

Fast

Sept. 29

Bernie Crespi

Simon Fraser U

Evolutionary-genomic conflicts from genes to networks to brains

Schluter

Oct. 6

Biodiversity Lecture:

Michael Lynch

Indiana U

Mutation and evolution

 

Grad Students

Oct. 13

Rick Michod

U Arizona

A Darwinian approach to complexity: evolutionary transitions in individuality in the volvocine algae

Doebeli

Oct. 20

John Reynolds

Simon Fraser U

Salmon-fuelled ecosystems in the
Great Bear Rainforest 

Schluter

Oct. 27

Tom Sisk

Northern Arizona U

Edges in dynamic landscapes: integrated models for understanding animal  responses to gradients in habitat quality

Otto

Nov. 3 

Steve Perlman

U Victoria

Ecology and evolution of a novel defensive symbiont of Drosophila

Fast

Nov. 10

Tadashi Fukami

Stanford U

Historical contingency in community assembly

 

Kraft

Nov. 17

John Fryxell

U of Guelph

Social predator-prey dynamics

Goheen

Nov. 24

Yan Boucher

U of Alberta

Marine mobile gene pools: the key to microbial evolution in the ocean

Keeling

Dec. 1

Amy Angert

U Colorado

Functional traits, population dynamics, and species coexistence in desert annual plants

Vellend

Dec. 8

Chitty Lecture:

Steve Palumbi

Stanford U

Hot and sour soup: adaptation of marine life in the face of climate  change

Grad Students

 

 

Spring 2010

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Jan. 13

Dave Hik

U of Alberta

Alpine herbivores in a warming climate

www.ipycanada.ca

Turkington

Jan. 20

 

Postponed until April 27

 

Jan. 27

John Taylor

UC Berkeley

Comparative genomics and natural history of a human pathogenic fungus

Keeling

Feb. 3

 

Postponed until March 17

 

Feb. 10

Mary Power

UC Berkeley

Species interactions down drainage networks and river-watershed-ocean connections:  towards predictive mapping

Richardson

Feb. 17

 

Mid-term Break (Olympics)

 

Feb. 24

 

Mid-term Break (Olympics)

 

Mar. 3 

T. Ryan Gregory

U of Guelph

Animal Genomes Large and Small
http://www.gregorylab.org/

Biodiversity Lecture

Mar. 10

Kate Smith

Brown U

Global environmental change,
disease emergence, and the timely birth of conservation medicine

http://katesmithlab.googlepages.com/

 

Chitty Lecture

Mar. 17

Jon Chase

Washington U

Community Assembly in Space and Time

Srivastava

Mar. 24

Mark McPeek

Dartmouth College

Climate change and how we got the fauna we have today

Vellend

Mar. 31

John Stinchcombe

U of Toronto

Ecological genetics of life history and mutualisms

Rieseberg

Apr. 7

Ford Doolittle

Irremediable complexity

Keeling

Apr. 14

Rebecca Safran

U of Colorado at Boulder

The role of sexual selection in maintaining phenotypic differences in the rapidly formed barn swallow species complex

Irwin

Apr. 21

Regular BRS lecture

Patricia Gowaty

U of California Los Angeles

Neutral models of sex roles or there's nothing so like a male as a female and vice versa

Arcese

Apr. 21

4:30
AERL 120

Stephen Hubbell

U of California Los Angeles

Tropical rain forests and the twin riddles of rarity and diversity

Arcese

Apr. 27

(Tuesday)

Jerry Coyne

U of Chicago

Two flies on an island: speciation in Drosophila

Schluter

 

 

Fall 2009

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Sept. 16

Miguel Angel Rodriguez-Girones

Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, CSIC

Evolution in pollination networks

Avilés

Sept. 23

Jonathan Losos

Harvard U

Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles

http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/losos/

Evolution Lecture

Sept. 30

Arne Mooers

Simon Fraser U

Is Phylogenetics Relevant to Conservation?

Schluter

Oct. 7

Tim Chumley

Central Washington U

Exploring Gnetalean affinities in the seed plants with an 81 gene plastid data set

Graham

Oct. 14

Susan McCouch

Cornell U

The history of rice domestication: Genetic isolation punctuated by genetic exchange

Rieseberg

Oct. 21

Jon Shurin

UBC

Variable environments and diversity in lakes

Goheen

Oct. 28

Paul Hebert

U of Guelph

A Census for All Life

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~phebert/

 

Biodiversity Lecture

Nov. 4 

Rosemary Gillespie

UC Berkely

Community assembly through adaptive radiation: Spiders on islands

Avilés

Nov. 11

 

Remembrance Day (University Closed)

 

Nov. 18

Brian Husband

U of Guelph

Polyploidy and the Ecological Amplitude of Plant Species

Whitton

Nov. 25

Patrick Keeling

UBC

Comparative microbial genomics

Schluter

Dec. 2

Wendy Palen

Simon Fraser U

The challenge of putting ecological stressors in context; three stories from the conservation of freshwaters

Harley

Dec. 9

John Willis

Duke U

Genetic analysis of adaptation and speciation in Mimulus

Whitlock

 

 

Evolution, Ecology, and Biodiversity Seminars

Spring 2009

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Jan. 7

Rebecca J. Rundel

UBC

Diversification of the rock and leaf litter-dwelling land snails of Belau (Republic of Palau, Oceania)

Leander

Jan. 14

Trent Hoover

UBC

Physical controls on ecological processes: Tales from a mountain stream system

Richardson

Jan. 21

Simon Conway Morris

U Cambridge

The Cambrian explosion: A reality check for evolution?

Whitlock

Jan. 28

Thomas Quinn

U. Washington

Predation by bears on salmon: ecology, behavior and evolution

E. Taylor

Feb. 4

Ruth Stockey

U Alberta

Distinguishing angiophytes from the earliest angiosperms: new evidence from the fossil record

Berbee

Feb. 11

Ivana Gudelj

Imperial College

Quantifying fitness in a public goods game

Doebeli

Feb. 18

None

MIDTERM BREAK

 

Feb. 25

Diane Srivastava

UBC

Diversity in two dimensions and the dynamics of bromeliad food webs

Srivastava

March 4

Karl Cottenie

U Guelph

Species richness - convenience versus confusion

Shurin

March 11

Anurag Agrawal

Cornell U

Comparative tests of plant defense theory

Chitty Lecture

March 18

Dan Bolnick

U Texas, Austin

Yes, we are all individuals!: The evolutionary and ecological consequences of niche variation

Schluter

March 25

Anne Salomon

UC Santa Barbara

Human Alteration of Coastal Food Webs: Navigating Towards Social-Ecological Resilience

Harley

April 1

Kris Metzger

UBC

Use of long term data for conservation planning

Sinclair

April 8

Rachael Y.  Dudaniec

UBC

Impact and ecological genetics of an invasive parasitic fly of Darwin's finches

Richardson

April 15

John Wakeley

Harvard

tba

Otto

 

Fall 2008

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Sept. 10

Josh Korman

UBC

Early life history dynamics of rainbow trout in a large regulated river

Walters

Sept. 17

John Kominoski

UBC

Linking resource and consumer diversity to ecosystem function in detritus-based watersheds

Richardson

Sept. 24 

Charles Krebs

UBC

Climate Change and Vertebrate Population Dynamics in the Boreal Forests and Tundra of Northern Canada

Krebs

Oct. 1

Antoine Leduc

UBC

Effects of weak acidity on behavioural risk  assessment by juvenile salmonids

Rosenfeld

Oct. 8

Rob Heinsohn

Australian Nat. U

Transvestites of the tree-tops: extreme reversed sexual dichromatism in Eclectus parrots

Arcese

Oct. 15

Monika Winder

UC Davis

Climate forcing at the base of the aquatic food web: subtle causes and big effects

Shurin

Oct. 22

Jim Bever

Indiana U

Ecological dynamics and evolutionary maintenance of the plant-mycorrhizal fungal mutualism

Turkington

Oct. 29 

Trevor Price

U Chicago

Speciation into and out of the Himalayas

Evolution Lecture

Nov. 5

Sean Rice

Texas Tech U

Towards an axiomatic theory of evolution

Aviles

Nov. 12

Rebecca Goldman Martone

UBC

Rights-based fisheries in Baja California: A management success story?

Chan

Nov. 19

Morgan Ernest

Utah State U

Zero-sum dynamics, the niche, and metacommunities: a desert rodent
perspective

Goheen

Nov. 26

Janna Rist

UBC

The use of hunters, baselines and cameras in monitoring

Vincent

 

Spring 2008

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Jan. 9

David Reznick

UC Riverside

The evolution of placentas in the
fish family Poeciliidae: An empirical study of macroevolution

Evolution Lecture

Jan. 16

Steven DeClerck

UBC

Aquatic biodiversity and its relation with resource limitation, structural diversity and among-patch connectivity

Shurin

Jan. 23

John Richardson

UBC

Donor-controlled ecosystem subsidies and facilitation are important processes in freshwater foodwebs

Richardson

Jan. 30

Marlene Zuk,

UC Riverside

Rapid evolution in silence: the causes and consequences of signal variation

Chitty Lecture

Feb. 6

Todd Palmer

U Florida

Ants, plants and elephants: long-term dynamics of a multi-species ant-Acacia protection symbiosis

Goheen

Feb. 13

J.C. Cahill

U Alberta

Main effects are dead:  Interactions among interactions likely drive community structure in a grassland

Turkington

Feb. 20

None

MIDTERM BREAK

 

Feb. 27

Antoine Lecerf

UBC

Linking ecosystem structure and ecological functions in human-dominated environments

Richardson

March 5

Laurent Lehmann

Stanford

The co-evolution between culturally-inherited helping behaviors and cultural transmission

Whitlock

March 12

Susannah Porter

UC Santa Barbara

The evolution of mineralized skeletons

Leander

March 19

Sabrina Taylor

UBC

Ancestral genetic variation in New Zealand saddlebacks and its consequences for recent serial translocations

Arcese

March 26

Brad Davis

UBC

Extinction & Compensatory Mutation

Whitlock

April 2

Troy Day

Queens

Modeling the evolutionary biology of coral bleaching

Doebeli

April 9

Rene Beyers

UBC

Natural and Anthropogenic Influences on Elephants and other Ungulates in the Congo Forest

Sinclair

April 16

Julia Sigwart

University College Dublin, & National Museum of Ireland

Deep sea chitons: Life on sunken wood

Harley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall 2007

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Sept. 5 *

Anthony Waldron

UBC

Geographic Range Size: Speciation, extinction and the stuff that happens in between

Schluter

Sept. 12

Adam Chippindale

Queens U

Gender load: Sexual conflict over gene expression reduces the fitness of sexual populations

Otto

Sept. 19

Michael Nachman

U Arizona

The genetic basis of reproductive 
isolation in mice

Rieseberg

Sept. 26 

Peter & Rosemary Grant

U Princeton

How and Why Species Multiply: the adaptive radiation of Darwin’s finches

Schluter

Oct. 3

Mark Blows

U Queensland

Genetic limits to evolutionary change

Schluter

Oct. 10

KEEP OPEN

KEEP OPEN

 

Oct. 17

Andrew Dobson

U Princeton

Metalife!  The ubiquity of parasitism and the dynamics of pathogens with multiple hosts

Sinclair

Oct. 24

Will Cornwell

UBC

Plant functional diversity: ecological causes and ecosystem effects

Sinclair

Oct. 31 

Dilara Ally

UBC

The Cost of Longevity:  loss of sexual function in clones of P.tremuloides

Otto

Nov. 7

Michael Russello

UBC-O

Revealing cryptic diversity in
species-at-risk

Schluter

Nov. 14

Jabus Tyerman

UBC

Phenotypic divergence in the lab:  What can E. coli tell us about "the
other aspect of speciation"?

Doebeli

Nov. 21

Hiroshi Tomimatsu

UBC

Plant responses to forest fragmentation in northern Japan

Vellend

Nov. 28

Rolf Vinebrook

U Alberta

Non-additive ecological surprises by global stressors

Shurin

 

Spring 2007

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Jan. 10

A.R.E. Sinclair

UBC

Longterm dynamics in the Serengeti ecosystem: Lessons for conservation and society

Sinclair

Jan. 17

Ben Kerr

UW

The evolution and resolution of a 'tragedy of the commons' in a host-pathogen metapopulation

Doebeli

Jan. 24

Brent Gurd

UBC

Functional ecomorphology, resource partitioning and the organization of
waterfowl communities.

Sinclair

Jan. 31

Brian Leander

UBC

Convergent evolution in predatory cells

Leander

Feb. 7

Hopi Hoekstra

UC San Diego

The genetic basis of adaptive change: from mice to molecules

Schluter

Feb. 14

Mark Drever

UBC

Of beetles and birds: resource availability, guild structure, and avian richness in the Cariboo-Chilcotin

Martin

Feb. 21

None

MIDTERM BREAK

 

Feb. 28

Bob Holt

UF Gainesville

Niche conservatism, evolution, and applied ecology: Challenges and opportunities

Chitty Lecture

March 7

Stuart West

U of Edinburgh

tba

Evolution Lecture

March 14

Jason Hoeksema

National Evolutionary Synthesis Center Durham, NC

Incorporating stoichiometry and economic principles into models of species interactions

Turkington

March 21

Janneke Hille Ris Lambers

UW

Exotic annual invaders in California: the role of resource competition and grazing

Vellend

March 28 *

Ray Hilborn

UW

Learning from fisheries successes:  managing fish is managing people

Larkin Lecture

April 4

Laurie Marczak

UBC

Trophic flows across ecosystem boundaries - when do they matter?

Richardson

April 11

Marc W Cadotte

UCSB

Species diversity: understanding by linking local and larger scales

Srivastava

April 18

Jason Weir

UBC

Climatic fluctuations and the origin of the Latitudinal diversity gradient

Schluter

April 25

Ricardo Holdo

UF Gainsville

 

Effects of herbivory, fire, and frost on woodland structure and composition in Kalahari savannas

Sinclair

 

Fall 2006

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Sept. 13

Ian Walker

UBC-O

The world according to midges

 

Myers

Sept. 20

Jane Reid

U.  Aberdeen

Evolutionary ecology of inbreeding and sexual selection in song sparrows

Arcese

Sept. 27 

Lasse Fast Jensen

Danish Institute for Fisheries Research

Natural selection in wild populations: a study of MHC variation in Danish brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) populations.

E. Taylor

Oct. 4

Arianne Albert

UBC

Sex and the stickleback

Schluter

Oct. 11

Michelle Tseng

UBC

Linking ecological variation to evolutionary change using host-parasite systems

Myers

Oct. 18

Blake Matthews

UBC

Food web ecology of lake zooplankton communities

Shurin

Oct. 25

Doug Armstrong

Massey U. NZ

The role of population ecology in improving our management of reintroduced populations

Arcese

Nov. 1 

Laura Prugh UBC

Island biogeography revisited: testing the importance of patch area and isolation with a global cross-taxonomic meta-analysis

Sinclair

Nov. 8

Matt Arnegard

UBC

Candidate gene for electric signal diversification among Africa's
mormyriform electric fish

Schluter

Nov. 15

Bradley Fedy

UBC

Combining molecular and ecological research to understand the metapopulation dynamics of an alpine obligate grouse species.

Martin

Nov. 22

John Fryxell

U. Guelph

Spatial dynamics and the viability of Serengeti herbivores

Sinclair

Nov. 29

Robert Dudley

UC Berkeley

Evolutionary Origins of Human Alcoholism in Primate Frugivory

Brauner

 

 

Spring 2006

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Jan. 4

Kai Chan

Conservation planning for ecosystem services

Chan

Jan. 11

Ray Callaway

Que es mas macho, novel weapons or the evolution of increased competitive ability?

Turkington

Jan. 18

Brad Cardinale

Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and scale
... can species be redundant?"

Richardson

Jan. 25

Kurtis Trczinski

The failure of an unfished Atlantic Cod population to recover: increasing trends in natural mortality and the role of seal predation

Srivastava

Feb. 1

Makiko Mimura

Dynamics of species' range: adaptation and gene flow in Sitka spruce.

Aitkin

Feb. 8

Sue Hannon

Reproductive source sink dynamics of American Redstarts

Myers

Feb. 15

None

MIDTERM BREAK

 

Feb. 22

Rees Kassen

The ecology and genetics of adaptation and diversification

Otto

March 1

Anthony Ives

Phylogenetic signal in host-parasitoid associations and Diversity and biological control of aphids

Chitty Lecture

March 8

Greg O'Corry-Crowe

The Molecular Ecology of Marine Mammals in a Changing Environment: Steller Sea Lions and Beluga Whales

Trites

March 15

Ingi Agnarsson

Spider sociality: repeated origins of an evolutionary dead-end?

Aviles/Maddison

March 22

Sean Rogers

The genetic bases of adaptation and reproductive isolation in the lake whitefish species complex (Coregonus clupeaformis)

Schluter

March 29

Richard Svanbäck

Ecology and Evolution of Adaptive Morphological Variation

Schluter

April 5

Brian Starzomski

The effects of metacommunity size and indirect interactions on local species diversity

Srivastava

April 12

Paul Brakefield

Butterfly evo-devo and what determines occupancy of morphospace

Evolution Lecture

April 19

Allan Baker

Influence of large-scale paleoenvironmental changes on the evolutionary history of birds

Ritland

 

Fall 2005

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Sept. 7

Charles Krebs

Controlling rodent pests: on the ecology of house mouse outbreaks in Australia and ricefield rat control in SE Asia

Krebs

Sept. 14

Barry Hall

Predicting the evolution of antibiotic resistance

 Redfield

Sept. 21

Tara Martin

 Predicting Australian woodland bird response to livestock grazing

Arcese 

Sept. 28

Keith Martin-Smith

Ecology & biodiversity of stream fish in Borneo

 Vincent

Oct. 5

 Helen Regan

Dealing with uncertainty for conservation management

 Gergel

Oct. 12

Luke Harmon

Repeated radiations of island lizards

Schluter

Oct. 19

Nathan Taylor

The Hierarchical Ecological Detective

Walters

Oct. 26

David Coltman

Evolutionary response to human harvesting

E. Taylor

Nov. 2

Kurt Grimm

A general theory of living systems

Grimm

Nov. 9

Sandy Andelman

Dynamics of fire, elephants and vegetation in the Kruger

Arcese

Nov. 16

Craig Benkman

Specialization and coevolution in the adaptive radiation of
crossbills

Irwin

Nov. 23

Chris Lortie

A test of the stress gradient hypothesis using meta-analysis

Turkington

Nov. 30

Wayne Maddison

Monsters lurking in the phylogenetic jungles: confounding asymmetries, skewed error and incomplete lineage sorting

Maddison

 

Spring 2005

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Jan. 5

 Mark Lewis

 Mechanistic home range analysis

 Doebeli

Jan. 12

Claire Horner-Devine 

 Big questions about small worlds: Patterns of bacterial diversity and community composition

 Shurin

Jan. 19

 Andrew MacColl

 Cooperative parental care in long-tailed tits

 Schluter

Jan. 26

Lesley Evans Ogden 

 Impacts of elevation on avian life history

 Martin

Feb. 2

 Mark Collard

 Hominid Phylogeny Reconstruction: Problems and Prospects

Maddison 

Feb. 9

Azim Mallik

 Destabilizing black spruce-Kalmia communities of eastern Canada: Allelopathy, disturbance severity and seedbed limitation.

 Richardson

Feb. 16

None

MIDTERM BREAK

 

Feb. 23

Steve Perlman 

 Evolution and ecology of a recently discovered symbiont that manipulates reproduction in insects

 Aviles

March 2

 David Schindler

 Climate Change, Human Use, and Freshwaters of the Western Prairies in the 21st Century

 Chitty Lecture

March 9

 Irby Lovette

 How to build a warbler: the
evolutionary ecology of North America's most diverse songbird
radiation

 Schluter

March 16

 Bob Denno

 Multi-trophic interactions across variable landscapes: consequences of predator invasions for insect herbivores

 Srivastava

March 23

Brian Charlesworth 

 The importance of being closely linked

Evolution Lecture 

March 30

 Risa Sargent

 Pollinator-mediated selection and diversity in flowering plants

 Otto

April 6

Katie Peichel 

 Genetic analysis of reproductive isolation in sticklebacks

 Schluter

April 13

Peter Keightley

The degraded hominid genome

Otto

 

Fall 2004

Date

Speaker

Title of Talk

Host Lab

Sept. 15

 Dolph Schluter

 Ecological Genetics of Adaptation

 Schluter

Sept. 22

Alida Janmaat 

 Environmental Stress and Costs of Resistance

 Myers

Sept. 29

 Roger Nisbet

 

 Population cycles

 http://penguin.zoology.ubc.ca/nisbet/

 Doebeli

Oct. 6

 Chris Eckert

Evolutionary consequences of biological invasion: interactions between founder effect and natural selection

 Whitton/Otto 

Oct. 13

 Keith Adams

 Exploring the Genomic Mysteries of Polyploidy

 Adams

Oct. 20

 Jon Witt

 Accelerated Molecular Evolution and Microvicariance in a Crustacean Genus

E. Taylor 

Oct. 27

Ryan Norris

Geographic connectivity and seasonal interactions in a migratory songbird

Irwin

Nov. 3

 David Green

 Social evolution and adaptive sex ratio manipulation in birds: an Australian perspective

 Smith

Nov. 10

Greg Sharam 

 The decline and restoration of riparian forest fragments in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

 Sinclair

Nov. 17

 Andrew MacDougall

 Stability dynamics in dynamic ecosystems

 Turkington

Nov. 24

 Laura Prugh

Coyote-mediated community dynamics during a snowshoe hare decline in Alaska 

 Krebs

Dec. 1

Jim Elser

 

Biological Stoichiometry from Genes to Ecosystems 

 Shurin

Dec. 8

Cort Griswold

Theoretical models of the genetics of adaptation

Whitlock