EES seminars 2011
From EESwiki
EES and Forschergruppe Seminars take place on Mondays at 17:00h in the Biozentrum.
02/05/2011 Dr. Sebastian Steinfartz - "Diversity and evolution of salamanders - an ecological perspective."
University of Bielefeld
Website: http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/%28en%29/biologie/vhf/SF/
Abstract: Although tailed amphibians (i.e. newts and salamanders) are not outstanding with respect to other vertebrate groups in terms of total number of species, they are outstanding concerning their adaptations associated with the evolution of quite different life history and reproductive traits. As it becomes more and more clear that adaptation to ecological conditions seems to be the major force of differentiation and speciation, natural systems that harbour a clear link between habitat and trait evolution seem to be promising to study. In the course of my talk I will provide an overview on the evolutionary diversity of tailed amphibians and will show how ecology impacts and impacted diversification and speciation processes on quite different phylogenetic levels, i.e. on the population to the family level.
Contact: Abhijeet Shah <abhijeet.shah"at"gmail.com>
09/05/2001 Dr. David Kirby - "Lab Coats in Hollywood: Scientists’ Backstage Role in the Production of Popular Films"
Special talk outside of the seminar series at 12:00 (instead of Prof. Parsch's Evolutionary Genomics lecture)
Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester
Website: http://www.davidakirby.com/
Abstract: Most people are unaware of scientists’ significant influence on the content of popular films. Yet, films ranging from A Beautiful Mind and Contact to Finding Nemo and Hulk have achieved some degree of scientific credibility because of science consultants. In this talk I elaborate on the backstage role scientific experts play in negotiating information transfer between the scientific community and the entertainment community in the production of popular films. Drawing on interviews and archival material, I will examine such science consulting tasks as fact checking, shaping visual iconography, advising actors, enhancing plausibility, creating dramatic situations, and placing science in its cultural contexts. I will also show how cinema can influence science as well by promoting research agendas, stimulating technological development, contributing to scientific controversies, and stirring citizens into political action.
Contact: Prof. John Parsch <parsch"at"zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de>
09/05/2011 Dr. Duncan Cameron - "Who hosts whom? Resolving the nature of orchid mycorrhizal symbioses."
University of Sheffield
Website 1: http://www.shef.ac.uk/aps/staff/acadstaff/cameron.html
Website 2: http://www.cameronlab.staff.shef.ac.uk/
23/05/2011 Dr. Claudia Fricke - "Costs and benefits of mating in Drosophila melanogaster"
University of East Anglia"
Website: http://biobis.bio.uea.ac.uk/biosql/fac_show.aspx?ID=365
Sexual selection is an important selective agent and shapes not only sexual ornaments but also traits related to individual fitness. Sexual selection has traditionally been viewed as a harmonious cooperation between the sexes to ensure successful reproduction, whereby females choose between males and males compete against each other for mating opportunities. Recently though, this view has been challenged as new theory shifted our attention to the possibility of conflict occurring between the sexes. Sexual conflict occurs when the evolutionary interests of males and females differ, resulting in opposing selection pressures over shared traits like mating rate. In my research I use the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and ask whether sexual selection or sexual conflict have shaped reproductive traits of interest. D. melanogaster males transfer over 120 different proteins in their ejaculate at mating. The full complement of these seminal proteins is known to shorten female lifespan and result in significant fitness costs to females. Our work utilises molecular and behavioural tools to investigate whether reproductive proteins and here particularly the sex peptide are mediating sexual conflict between the sexes. Furthermore I present data on biotic and abiotic factors that have the potential to alter the outcome of male-female interactions to highlight the dynamic nature of the selection pressures shaping male and female reproductive traits.
Contact: Prof. John Parsch <parsch"at"zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de>
30/05/2011 Dr. Piero Genovesi - "How to respond to biological invasions? Prediction, risk assessment, management & policy"
Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA)
Website: http://www.issg.org/contact.htm
Abstract: Europe is facing increasing impacts by invasive alien species, that also cause huge costs to the regional economy, estimated in well over 12.5 billion Euro/year. These impacts, and the ongoing explosive growth of biological invasions imposes to develop more stringent policies aimed at preventing and mitigating the impacts posed by invasive alien species to the biological diversity of Europe, as well as to our economies and well being. The key components of a European policy have already been defined at the global and regional scale: prevention as the priority, rapid response when prevention fails, and permanent control as the last option. But implementing these simple principles is a complex challenge in the European system for different reasons, partly ecological, partly political. To be successful, this effort requires the support of many sectors of the society including the academic world. The European Commission is now working at a EU policy on invasive species, and has recently released a communication stating the commitment to deliver this policy by 2012. The policy will include an early warning and rapid response framework, and a legal instrument to fill the existing gaps in the European regulatory system.
06/06/2011 Prof. Marta Manser - "Social awareness in meerkats: limited or not recognized"
University of Zurich
Website: http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/staff/professors/mmanser.html
Abstract: Social awareness in animal species across taxonomic classes differs substantially and can be classified into different levels of recognition and the according underlying cognitive mechanisms. The different levels range from a simple understanding of the motivational states of others to knowledge regarding individuals, third party relationships and even the mental states of conspecifics. While we have much evidence for the recognition of the motivational state of others across taxonomic classes, the evidence for the other three levels of social awareness is limited to primates. Using wild, socially living meerkats, Suricata suricatta, as a comparative example, I review the evidence for social awareness at the different cognitive levels in this species and discuss why we find evidence for only the more simplistic understanding of others motivational states and individuality. In particular I will address the importance of designing meaningful experiments eliciting appropriate responses in animals if we are to truly understand how animals perceive their social worlds.
20/06/2011 Dr. Susanne Schulmeister - "Problems and Issues in Phylogenetic Analysis, exemplified in Hymenoptera"
LMU Department of Biology II
Website: http://susanne.schulmeister.com/
Abstract: As a new “Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgaben” (lecturer) at the LMU Biozentrum, I want to present my research and teaching. But rather than limit my talk to the latest scientific results on the phylogeny of Hymenoptera (ants, bees and other wasps), which would be of interest only to specialists, I want to discuss my past research with a focus on general patterns, issues and problems of phylogenetic analysis that most phylogenetic systematists have encountered in their research, in the hope that my talk is going to be interesting to many biologists, including students. In addition to describing the fascinating biology and evolution of Hymenoptera, including their rapid radiation after the evolution of parasitism, I may discuss morphological & molecular data, sequence alignment, analytical methods (likelihood, Bayesian, parsimony), long-branch attraction, influence of analytical parameters, and other topics, time permitting.
27/06/2011 Prof. Barbara Tschirren
University of Zurich
Website: http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/staff/professors/tschirren.html
Abstract: Patterns of selection acting on immune defence genes have recently been the focus of considerable interest. Yet, when it comes to vertebrates, studies have primarily focused on the acquired branch of the immune system. Consequently, the direction and strength of selection acting on genes of the vertebrate innate immune defence remain poorly understood. I will present a study in which I analysed patterns of parasite-mediated selection acting on the innate immune gene Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) in free-living rodents at three different levels: i) across species, ii) across populations, and iii) within population. I show that positive selection has shaped TLR2 during the evolutionary history of rodents. Furthermore, by comparing patterns of diversity and divergence between populations at TLR2 and neutral markers, I show that contemporary selection acts in dramatically different ways on TLR2 in ecologically similar and sympatric rodent species, and that pronounced TLR2 population differentiation occurs even at a small geographical scale. Finally, the results of a large capture-mark-recapture study within a rodent population provide evidence for a close association between TLR2 genotype and Borrelia resistance. Together, these results highlight that TLR2 plays an important role in host-parasite interactions in wild rodents and that vertebrate innate immune genes are evolutionarily much more dynamic than often assumed.
11/07/2011 Prof. Etienne Danchin - "Beyond DNA: integrating inclusive inheritance into an extended theory of evolution"
Université Paul Sabatier
Website 1: http://www.edb.ups-tlse.fr/?lang=en
Website 2: http://www.edanchin.fr/spip.php?article22
Abstract: Many biologists are calling for an ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ that would ‘modernize the modern synthesis’ of evolution. Biological information is typically considered as being transmitted across generations by the DNA sequence alone, but accruing evidence indicates that both genetic and non-genetic inheritance, and the interactions between them, have important effects on evolutionary outcomes. We review the evidence for such effects of epigenetic, parental, ecological and cultural inheritance and outline methods that quantify the relative contributions of genetic and non-genetic heritability to the transmission of phenotypic variation across generations. These issues have implications for diverse areas, from the question of missing heritability to the basis of major evolutionary transitions.
Unfortunately, Prof. Danchin's talk has had to be cancelled!
25/07/2011 Prof. Marco Thines - "Unravelling the functional genetics of host jumps in oomycetes and their evolutionary implications"
Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, University of Frankfurt
Website: http://www.bik-f.de/root/index.php?page_id=264&PHPSESSID=301ndf06476aaf6tbb3sdfuoasqr79mi
Abstract: Oomycetes are a group of fungal-like eukaryotes which share their evolutionary roots with brown algae and diatoms. With more than 1000 currently-known species, the highly host specific downy mildews are the largest group of these organisms. Within the downy mildews, several host jumps can be observed, which are often followed by radiation events. Downy mildews, like other plant pathogens, manipulate their hosts with a suit of effector proteins, which enable the pathogens to colonise their hosts. Especially cytoplasmic effectors, which suppress plant defence pathways, play a crucial role in this process. So far, nothing is known about the impact of host shifts on the effector complement of plant pathogens, despite their importance for understanding pathogen diversity and evolution . Recently, we established species of the Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis cluster as model system to investigate this matter. The results obtained so far show a complex pattern of adaptation with divergent evolutionary forces exerted on specific effectors. While some effectors got lost, others underwent drastic gene duplication and paralogisation. Many effectors show strong signatures of positive selection at specific domains, indicative of the adaptation to the new effector targets encountered during a host shift, which enabled efficient colonisation of the new host.
Contact: Prof. Wolfgang Stephan <stephan"at"bio.lmu.de>
01/08/2011 Dr. Kayla C. King - "Coevolution promotes genetic diversity: interactions between a freshwater snail and its trematode parasites"
Indiana University
Website: http://sites.bio.indiana.edu/~livelylab/Kayla.html
Contact: Dr. Justyna Wolinska <wolinska@bio.lmu.de>
Unfortunately, Dr. King's talk has had to be cancelled!
