BES Facebook pageBES Annual Symposium
Speciation and Ecology
University of Sheffield
28 - 30 March 2007
Organisers: Roger Butlin, Jon Bridle
and Dolph Schluter
Biological diversity varies enormously in time and space. Ultimately, diversity is generated by speciation and lost by extinction. So, how much do we need to know about the mechanisms of speciation in order to understand patterns of diversity? Is speciation typically driven by ecological opportunity? Does this imply that adaptive radiation occurs in empty environments and the rate of speciation declines as diversity increases? Alternatively, if speciation is driven by fragmentation of populations or by sexual selection, how does this interact with extinction to explain current diversity? Does speciation generate ecologically equivalent units with equal probabilities of persistence?
This meeting aims to tackle these and similar questions in the light of recent advances in understanding of speciation mechanisms and the factors that influence speciation rates.
Thursday 29 March
Introduction
Do mechanisms of speciation matter for explaining diversity?
Roger Butlin, Jon Bridle and Dolph Schluter, University of Sheffield, University of Bristol and University of British Columbia
1. Are species the right units in which to measure diversity?
On the arbitrary identification of real species
Jody Hey, Rutgers University
The evolutionary status of species in bdelloid rotifers
Timothy G. Barraclough 1,2, Diego Fontaneto 3, Elisabeth A. Herniou 1, Chiara Boschetti 3, Giulio Melone 3, & Claudia Ricci 3
1 Division of Biology, Imperial College London, 2 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 3 Università di Milano, 4 Institute of Biotechnology, University of Cambridge
The poverty of protists
Graham Bell, McGill University, USA
Community assembly, diversity and evolution in the microbial world
Tom Curtis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
2. Spatial patterns of speciation and diversity
Ecological controls on the rate of speciation
Albert Phillimore, Imperial College, Silwood Park, UK
Trevor Price, University of Chicago, USA
Limits to local adaptation: why does adaptation lead to biodiversity?
Jon Bridle, University of Bristol, UK
Biotic interactions and speciation in the tropics
Douglas W. Schemske, Michigan State University, USA
Chad E. Brassil, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
3. Adaptive radiation, speciation and diversity
Dynamic patterns of adaptive radiation: Effects of sexual selection
Sergey Gavrilets and Aaron Vose, University of Tennessee, USA
Friday 30 March
Niche dimensionality and ecological speciation
Patrik Nosil and Luke Harmon, University of British Columbia, Canada
Testing speciation models using African cichlid fish of the genus Pundamilia
Ole Seehausen, Institute of Zoology, University of Bern, Switzerland
Rapid speciation and adaptive radiation in the Heliconius melpomene group
Jim Mallet, University College London, UK
Comparative approaches demonstrate evolutionary generalities about ecological speciation
Daniel J. Funk, Vanderbilt University, USA
4. Rates of speciation and extinction
Speciation, extinction and the regulation of diversity within clades
Robert E. Ricklefs, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA
Temporal patterns in diversification rates
Andy Purvis, C. David L. Orme, Imperial College London, UK
Paul N. Pearson, Cardiff University, UK
Biotic and abiotic controls on speciation in the fossil record
John Alroy, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, USA
Energy flux variations in time and space and their effect on plant speciation rates
Katherine J. Willis and Keith D. Bennett, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, UK
Conclusion
Dolph Schluter, Jon Bridle and Roger Butlin
For timings of the programme, please click here.
POSTER SESSION
IF YOU HAVE NOT BOOKED TO ATTEND THE MEETING, YOUR POSTER WILL NOT BE INCLUDED IN THE PROGRAMME.
If you have sent in a booking form, your poster has been accepted!
Your poster should be displayed on the board number listed in the Programme. The Programme will be available at the Registration Desk. Registration Desk times and locations are listed in the Joining Instructions you will have received with your booking confirmation letter. If you have booked and not received your confirmation letter, please contact Richard English as soon as possible. Alternatively, you may download the Joining Instructions using the link below.
Please note that there will be a few amendments to the Programme due to future cancellations.
The poster boards are 1.2m by 1.8m PORTRAIT (useable space is 1.15m by 1.75m). Posters should be attached to the boards by Velcro (sticky) tape that you should bring with you. Each poster should include a photograph of the lead author to help delegates identify the presenter.
Posters will remain on display for the whole meeting; they will be displayed in Fusion Bar area along with exhibitors and where lunch, tea and coffee will be served.
There will be a helper available to guide poster presenters to their display boards, which are numbered according to numbers printed in the Programme. Posters can be put up from 08:30 on Thursday 29 March, but poster presenters are strongly encouraged to put up their posters by 10:30 on Thursday 29 March so that they are available to view during the first coffee break. Posters must be taken down by 17:30 on Friday 30 March. We cannot take any responsibility for posters left up after this time.
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Joining Instructions containing travel details to the venue, registration and meal times and general information will be sent out with your booking confirmation letter; you can also access them here.
