Abstract: Hybridization, or the exchange of genes between different species, is much more common than previously recognized. In the past decade, the genome sequencing revolution has allowed us to peer into the evolutionary histories of myriad species. This has led to the realization that many if not most plant and animal species have hybridized with their close relatives. Even the genome of our own species has been shaped by past hybridization. My research program seeks to illuminate the genetic and evolutionary consequences of hybridization. We study the mechanisms through which negative genetic interactions are eliminated after hybridization and the situations under which hybridization is beneficial, using swordtail fish as a model system.

• Speaker: Molly Schumer, Stanford
• Tuesday 21 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

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Abstract: Hybridization, or the exchange of genes between different species, is much more common than previously recognized. In the past decade, the genome sequencing revolution has allowed us to peer into the evolutionary histories of myriad species. This has led to the realization that many if not most plant and animal species have hybridized with their close relatives. Even the genome of our own species has been shaped by past hybridization. My research program seeks to illuminate the genetic and evolutionary consequences of hybridization. We study the mechanisms through which negative genetic interactions are eliminated after hybridization and the situations under which hybridization is beneficial, using swordtail fish as a model system.

• Speaker: Molly Schumer, Stanford
• Tuesday 21 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Abstract: Hybridization, or the exchange of genes between different species, is much more common than previously recognized. In the past decade, the genome sequencing revolution has allowed us to peer into the evolutionary histories of myriad species. This has led to the realization that many if not most plant and animal species have hybridized with their close relatives. Even the genome of our own species has been shaped by past hybridization. My research program seeks to illuminate the genetic and evolutionary consequences of hybridization. We study the mechanisms through which negative genetic interactions are eliminated after hybridization and the situations under which hybridization is beneficial, using swordtail fish as a model system.

• Speaker: Molly Schumer, Stanford
• Tuesday 21 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

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Freshwater resources worldwide are threatened by salinization caused by human activities, particularly in regions of the world using salt to clear roads of snow and ice. Salt applications to roads have been occurring for nearly 80 years, but substantial scientific attention to this issue has only taken off during the past decade and there have been many surprising discoveries. In this seminar, Dr. Relyea will present his group’s research on the ecological impacts of freshwater salinization and the ability of freshwater species to evolve increased salt tolerance. He will also discuss the steps that are being taken to reverse this major environmental problem to protect water bodies, while improving road safety and lowering the cost of snow and ice removal for governments and private applicators.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Rick Relyea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
• Tuesday 14 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

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An understanding of the evolutionary relationships among organisms underlies most of what we do in evolutionary biology. Despite considerable progress fueled by new approaches and ever larger datasets, the phylogenetic relationships of some groups are still clouded in uncertainty. A prime example are modern birds, Neoaves, whose relationships remain recalcitrant despite decades of inquiry. As part of the Bird 10,000 Genome Project (B10K), we aimed for a new take on the neoavian phylogeny using whole-genome-wide assessments based on 363 bird genomes. I will discuss which progress this has brought about, and which groups remain challenging to resolve. The sources of these persistent discordances seem to be rooted in a diversity of technical and biological sources. The whole-genome-wide phylogenetic approach points the way for the role of phylogenomics in the coming era of genomes for every living thing.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Josefin Stiller, University of Copenhagen
• Tuesday 07 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

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The Cambrian Explosion is one of the most significant biotic events in the history of the Earth. During this time, the complexity of interactions between animals as well as with their environments increased rapidly, in turn leading to more complex community structures. Thus, a clear picture of the structure of Cambrian animal communities is integral to understanding the origins of modern ecosystems. However, relatively few Cambrian fossil sites preserve the total animal community, including the most soft-bodied taxa. Additionally, datasets with high stratigraphic resolution, which are necessary to understand fine scale spatiotemporal gradients, are rare. As a result, fundamental aspects of Cambrian community ecology, such as trophic structure and spatial diversity gradients, remain cryptic. In this seminar, I will present recent work delving into the community ecology of Cambrian marine ecosystems through the lens of some of the best preserved fossil sites in the world. First among these is the celebrated Burgess Shale, located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. For over 100 years, this site has provided unparalleled insights into early animal evolution, but community-scale analyses have been relatively rare. My data shows that the animal communities of the Burgess Shale were highly variable in terms of total diversity, as well as the most abundant ecological modes represented. Further, even localities within the same geological formation have highly distinct fauna, with several indicator species suggesting a degree of species endemism. Broadly, this suggests that some of the earliest complex animal communities were highly variable both spatially and temporally. I then expand the scope of this study to include older Cambrian communities from China, and re-analyze this enlarged dataset through the lens of functional diversity. One of the major results of these analyses is the observation that alpha diversity and functional diversity fluctuate independently of each other, suggesting that typical metrics of biodiversity alone cannot adequately describe the structure of Cambrian communities. Moving forward, integrating more rigorously sampled datasets with time series information and functional traits is necessary to fully understand the ecological dynamics of the earliest complex ecosystems. Further, expanding the temporal scope of this work, particularly to Ediacaran community datasets, is necessary for a more complete understanding of how early animal ecosystems developed.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Karma Nanglu, Harvard University
• Tuesday 28 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

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Traits can only function together if expressed together, but the evolution of such phenotypic integration remains poorly understood. In this talk, I will present our recent work on the evolutionary origin and geographic spread of a sexually selected syndrome in wall lizards. Climatic effects on the strength of sexual selection causes a mosaic of phenotypic variation across the landscape, and promotes asymmetric introgression into a distantly related lineage. The phenotypic integration of color, morphology, and behavior persists throughout a hybrid zone, pointing towards a genetic architecture with a single or few major loci. Analyses of genomic data supports this hypothesis and reveals a single candidate region with striking structural variations. I discuss how this genomic architecture can orchestrate the co-expression of color, morphology, and behavior, and what it can teach us about the evolution of complex phenotypes.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Nathalie Feiner, Lund University
• Tuesday 14 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

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Species’ niches are constrained by abiotic conditions like climate and land-use, and by biotic interactions like consumption, competition, and facilitation. However, abiotic and biotic conditions do not act in isolation. The interplay between them drives species distributions, abundances, population dynamics, community structure, evolutionary trajectories, and how biodiversity responds to environmental change. I’ll explore new methods, data, and conceptual approaches for measuring biotic and abiotic drivers of biodiversity patterns at local and global scales. I’ll draw on work done by several members of my research group, FABio – Fundamental and Applied Biogeography.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Regan Early, Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, UK
• Tuesday 07 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

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Navigation, or the ability to accurately and efficiently determine one’s position relative to a goal, underpins many important behaviours. For aquatic animals, visually-guided navigation underwater comes with particular challenges. In addition to an extended range of movement along both the vertical and horizontal axes compared to most terrestrial animals, the appearance of visual cues can change rapidly due to the behaviour of light in water (e.g. attenuation, wave-induced flicker, low-light), reducing the accuracy of landmark identification. In this talk, I will discuss what we can learn from laboratory experiments about the mechanism of visual navigation, including object recognition, distance estimation, and route planning. I will also explore how we can use recent advances in computer vision and photogrammetry to understand the navigation behaviour of wild fish moving within their complex natural environments.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Cait Newport, University of Oxford
• Tuesday 31 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Species’ niches are constrained by abiotic conditions like climate and land-use, and by biotic interactions like consumption, competition, and facilitation. However, abiotic and biotic conditions do not act in isolation. The interplay between them drives species distributions, abundances, population dynamics, community structure, evolutionary trajectories, and how biodiversity responds to environmental change. I’ll explore new methods, data, and conceptual approaches for measuring biotic and abiotic drivers of biodiversity patterns at local and global scales. I’ll draw on work done by several members of my research group, FABio – Fundamental and Applied Biogeography.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Regan Early, Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, UK
• Tuesday 07 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

The Cambrian Explosion is one of the most significant biotic events in the history of the Earth. During this time, the complexity of interactions between animals as well as with their environments increased rapidly, in turn leading to more complex community structures. Thus, a clear picture of the structure of Cambrian animal communities is integral to understanding the origins of modern ecosystems. However, relatively few Cambrian fossil sites preserve the total animal community, including the most soft-bodied taxa. Additionally, datasets with high stratigraphic resolution, which are necessary to understand fine scale spatiotemporal gradients, are rare. As a result, fundamental aspects of Cambrian community ecology, such as trophic structure and spatial diversity gradients, remain cryptic. In this seminar, I will present recent work delving into the community ecology of Cambrian marine ecosystems through the lens of some of the best preserved fossil sites in the world. First among these is the celebrated Burgess Shale, located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. For over 100 years, this site has provided unparalleled insights into early animal evolution, but community-scale analyses have been relatively rare. My data shows that the animal communities of the Burgess Shale were highly variable in terms of total diversity, as well as the most abundant ecological modes represented. Further, even localities within the same geological formation have highly distinct fauna, with several indicator species suggesting a degree of species endemism. Broadly, this suggests that some of the earliest complex animal communities were highly variable both spatially and temporally. I then expand the scope of this study to include older Cambrian communities from China, and re-analyze this enlarged dataset through the lens of functional diversity. One of the major results of these analyses is the observation that alpha diversity and functional diversity fluctuate independently of each other, suggesting that typical metrics of biodiversity alone cannot adequately describe the structure of Cambrian communities. Moving forward, integrating more rigorously sampled datasets with time series information and functional traits is necessary to fully understand the ecological dynamics of the earliest complex ecosystems. Further, expanding the temporal scope of this work, particularly to Ediacaran community datasets, is necessary for a more complete understanding of how early animal ecosystems developed.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Karma Nanglu, Harvard University
• Tuesday 28 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

An understanding of the evolutionary relationships among organisms underlies most of what we do in evolutionary biology. Despite considerable progress fueled by new approaches and ever larger datasets, the phylogenetic relationships of some groups are still clouded in uncertainty. A prime example are modern birds, Neoaves, whose relationships remain recalcitrant despite decades of inquiry. As part of the Bird 10,000 Genome Project (B10K), we aimed for a new take on the neoavian phylogeny using whole-genome-wide assessments based on 363 bird genomes. I will discuss which progress this has brought about, and which groups remain challenging to resolve. The sources of these persistent discordances seem to be rooted in a diversity of technical and biological sources. The whole-genome-wide phylogenetic approach points the way for the role of phylogenomics in the coming era of genomes for every living thing.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Josefin Stiller, University of Copenhagen
• Tuesday 07 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

The collective behaviour of animals has attracted considerable attention in recent years, with many studies exploring how local interactions between individuals can give rise to global group properties. The functional aspects of collective behaviour are less well studied and relatively few studies have investigated the adaptive benefits of collective behaviour in situations where prey are attacked by predators. This is unsurprising because predator-prey interactions in the field are difficult to observe. Furthermore, the focus in recent studies on predator-prey interactions has been on the collective behaviour of the prey rather than on the behaviour of the predator. In my talk I present a field study that investigated the antipredator benefits of waves produced by fish at the water surface when diving down collectively in response to attacks of avian predators. Fish engaged in surface waves that were highly conspicuous, repetitive, and rhythmic involving many thousands of individuals for up to 2 min. Collective fish waves increased the time birds waited until their next attack and also reduced capture probability in three avian predators that greatly differed in size, appearance and hunting strategy. Taken together, these results support a generic antipredator function of fish waves which could be a result of a confusion effect or a consequence of waves acting as a perception advertisement, which requires further exploration.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Jens Krause, IGB Berlin
• Tuesday 17 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Navigation, or the ability to accurately and efficiently determine one’s position relative to a goal, underpins many important behaviours. For aquatic animals, visually-guided navigation underwater comes with particular challenges. In addition to an extended range of movement along both the vertical and horizontal axes compared to most terrestrial animals, the appearance of visual cues can change rapidly due to the behaviour of light in water (e.g. attenuation, wave-induced flicker, low-light), reducing the accuracy of landmark identification. In this talk, I will discuss what we can learn from laboratory experiments about the mechanism of visual navigation, including object recognition, distance estimation, and route planning. I will also explore how we can use recent advances in computer vision and photogrammetry to understand the navigation behaviour of wild fish moving within their complex natural environments.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Cait Newport, University of Oxford
• Tuesday 31 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Freshwater resources worldwide are threatened by salinization caused by human activities, particularly in regions of the world using salt to clear roads of snow and ice. Salt applications to roads have been occurring for nearly 80 years, but substantial scientific attention to this issue has only taken off during the past decade and there have been many surprising discoveries. In this seminar, Dr. Relyea will present his group’s research on the ecological impacts of freshwater salinization and the ability of freshwater species to evolve increased salt tolerance. He will also discuss the steps that are being taken to reverse this major environmental problem to protect water bodies, while improving road safety and lowering the cost of snow and ice removal for governments and private applicators.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Rick Relyea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
• Tuesday 14 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Traits can only function together if expressed together, but the evolution of such phenotypic integration remains poorly understood. In this talk, I will present our recent work on the evolutionary origin and geographic spread of a sexually selected syndrome in wall lizards. Climatic effects on the strength of sexual selection causes a mosaic of phenotypic variation across the landscape, and promotes asymmetric introgression into a distantly related lineage. The phenotypic integration of color, morphology, and behavior persists throughout a hybrid zone, pointing towards a genetic architecture with a single or few major loci. Analyses of genomic data supports this hypothesis and reveals a single candidate region with striking structural variations. I discuss how this genomic architecture can orchestrate the co-expression of color, morphology, and behavior, and what it can teach us about the evolution of complex phenotypes.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Nathalie Feiner, Lund University
• Tuesday 14 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

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The origin of the jawed vertebrates remains one of the persistent mysteries in vertebrate evolution. Jaws, teeth, and paired fins are widely regarded as vertebrate ‘key innovations’, but their origins remain poorly documented in the fossil record. We know that jawed vertebrates originated more than 420 million years ago, but no fossil intermediates between jawless and jawless vertebrates have ever been confidently identified. Despite remarkable and well-publicised discoveries in recent years, almost none of these have been able to firmly bridge the gap between jawless vertebrate anatomy and modern jawed vertebrates. In this talk, I will present a refreshed view of jawed vertebrate origins and the origins of paired fins, drawing on new fossil data and new interpretations. Debates about the origin of jaws and paired fins have thus been dominated by compelling but speculative theories based on pre-Darwinian ‘idealistic morphology’. By returning to the fundamentals of comparative anatomy, employing high-resolution computed tomography, and integrating biomechanical and comparative developmental knowledge, I will help close the morphological gap between early jawed vertebrates and their nearest jawless relatives. These results will provide surprising new evidence on one of the enduring mysteries of vertebrate evolution: the evolution of a distinct head and shoulder and how this helps us resolve the simultaneous origins of jaws and fins.

This talk is hybrid - email the organisers for a Zoom link

• Speaker: Dr Martin D Brazeau, Imperial College London
• Tuesday 24 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Stephen Pates.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

Freshwater resources worldwide are threatened by salinization caused by human activities, particularly in regions of the world using salt to clear roads of snow and ice. Salt applications to roads have been occurring for nearly 80 years, but substantial scientific attention to this issue has only taken off during the past decade and there have been many surprising discoveries. In this seminar, Dr. Relyea will present his group’s research on the ecological impacts of freshwater salinization and the ability of freshwater species to evolve increased salt tolerance. He will also discuss the steps that are being taken to reverse this major environmental problem to protect water bodies, while improving road safety and lowering the cost of snow and ice removal for governments and private applicators.

• Speaker: Dr Rick Relyea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
• Tuesday 14 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

The collective behaviour of animals has attracted considerable attention in recent years, with many studies exploring how local interactions between individuals can give rise to global group properties. The functional aspects of collective behaviour are less well studied and relatively few studies have investigated the adaptive benefits of collective behaviour in situations where prey are attacked by predators. This is unsurprising because predator-prey interactions in the field are difficult to observe. Furthermore, the focus in recent studies on predator-prey interactions has been on the collective behaviour of the prey rather than on the behaviour of the predator. In my talk I present a field study that investigated the antipredator benefits of waves produced by fish at the water surface when diving down collectively in response to attacks of avian predators. Fish engaged in surface waves that were highly conspicuous, repetitive, and rhythmic involving many thousands of individuals for up to 2 min. Collective fish waves increased the time birds waited until their next attack and also reduced capture probability in three avian predators that greatly differed in size, appearance and hunting strategy. Taken together, these results support a generic antipredator function of fish waves which could be a result of a confusion effect or a consequence of waves acting as a perception advertisement, which requires further exploration.

• Speaker: Jens Krause, IGB Berlin
• Tuesday 17 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

The collective behaviour of animals has attracted considerable attention in recent years, with many studies exploring how local interactions between individuals can give rise to global group properties. The functional aspects of collective behaviour are less well studied and relatively few studies have investigated the adaptive benefits of collective behaviour in situations where prey are attacked by predators. This is unsurprising because predator-prey interactions in the field are difficult to observe. Furthermore, the focus in recent studies on predator-prey interactions has been on the collective behaviour of the prey rather than on the behaviour of the predator. In my talk I present a field study that investigated the antipredator benefits of waves produced by fish at the water surface when diving down collectively in response to attacks of avian predators. Fish engaged in surface waves that were highly conspicuous, repetitive, and rhythmic involving many thousands of individuals for up to 2 min. Collective fish waves increased the time birds waited until their next attack and also reduced capture probability in three avian predators that greatly differed in size, appearance and hunting strategy. Taken together, these results support a generic antipredator function of fish waves which could be a result of a confusion effect or a consequence of waves acting as a perception advertisement, which requires further exploration.

• Speaker: Jens Krause, IGB Berlin
• Tuesday 17 January 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Main Zoology Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list