Category Archives: Reading Groups

Next Week’s Bike Expedition: Island Speciation in Birds

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For next week’s bike expedition, we’re going to read two recent papers on speciation in island birds (links are below).  I’ve also written a short commentary for Molecular Ecology on these papers that I can provide to anyone who’s interested (it’s not yet available on-line).  We’ll depart from outside Hutch at 1PM on Thursday, June 2nd.  Possible destinations include: Sully’s, New Taj India (Corn Hill Landing), Napa Pizza (South Wedge), Owl House, and S.E.A. (Monroe Ave.).

Melo et al. (2011) Rapid parallel evolution of aberrant traits in the diversification of the Gulf of Guinea white-eyes (Aves, Zosteropidae). Molecular Ecology [doi link]

Sly et al. (2011) Ancient islands and modern invasions: disparate phylogeographic histories among Hispaniola’s endemic birds. Molecular Ecology [doi link]

Summer, Bikes, Caribbean Cuisine, and (the other) Neutral Theory

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The Peppa Pot's oxtail speciality

UPDATE: This expedition has been postponed until Monday due to a few key absences.  We’ll meet 1PM outside Hutch on Monday.

Last summer we took some discussion groups on the road, forming a bike posse to local eateries so that we could discuss research over a meal. We’re going to do the same this summer, starting with a trip this Friday at 1PM to the newly opened Peppa Pot Jamaican Restaurant on Gregory (<1 mile from campus).  We’ll be discussing two recent papers on the unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography.  A review paper in TREE will help refresh everyone’s memory about what the neutral theory is.  A recent paper from Ecology Letters, meanwhile, offers an interesting new application of neutral theory to island biogeography.  We’ll depart from the front of Hutch by bike at 1PM this Friday!

Rosindell, J., S. P. Hubbell, and R. S. Etienne (In Press) The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography at age ten. TREE [doi link]

Rosindell, J. and A. B. Phillimore (2011) A unified model of island biogeography sheds light on the zone of radiation. Ecology Letters [doi link]

Gillespie – Chapter 1

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Just a reminder about chapter 1 (up to page 40) for tomorrow (Tuesday).  We’ll meet at 12:30 in Hutch 316.  Dan S. wants to talk about grad student invited speakers for 10-20 minutes, so if you a) aren’t a grad student or b) won’t be here next year, you might want to wait until 12:45ish.  Concentrate on the preface and main argument and not the details of each example.

Plant Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Reading Group

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Thursday 4pm, Hutch 316

We have a couple of special presentations this week. Annalise Kjolhede (left) and Julia Cosgrove (right) will present overviews of their undergraduate honors theses.

Annalise will be presenting her work on the soils and geology of Monroe County entitled “The Influence of Landforms and Soils on the Vegetation of Monroe County, New York.”

Julia will be presenting her work on forest structure and coarse woody debris entitled “Stand Structure and Down Woody Debris in Beech-Maple Old-Growth Forests of the Rochester Area.”

Plant Ecology and Evolution Reading Group

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Thursday, 4pm Hutch 316

This week we will be talking about the effects of land-use history and the environment on plant distributions. For example, eastern forests were largely cut to make way for agriculture throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. With the abandonment of eastern agricultural lands in the 20th century, forests have been regenerating and expanding from forest remnants on land deemed poor for agriculture. More recently, however, urban sprawl and renewed timber cutting has mostly halted the spread of eastern forests.

Flinn, K.M., M. Vellend, and P.L. Marks. 2005. Environmental causes and consequences of forest clearance and agricultural abandonment in central New York, USA. Journal of Biogeography 32:439-452. [doi link]

Drummond, M.A., and T.R. Loveland. 2010. Land-use pressure and a transition to forest-cover loss in the eastern United States. BioScience 60:286-298. [doi link]

a) UR Woodlands 1930

b) UR Woodlands 1961

c) UR Woodlands 1988

d) UR Woodlands 2005