NIMBioS Tuesday Seminar Series

In conjunction with the interdisciplinary activities of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), a seminar series will be hosted at NIMBioS every other Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. in the NIMBioS Lecture Hall on the 4th floor of 1534 White Ave., Suite 400 Seminar speakers will focus on their research initiatives at the interface of mathematics and many areas of the life sciences. Light refreshments will be served starting at 3 p.m.

Time/Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2011. 3:30 p.m.*
Location: Room 403, Blount Hall, 1534 White Ave., Suite 400
Speaker: Mark McPeek, David T. McLaughlin Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth, and NIMBioS Postdoctoral Fellows Invited Distinguished Visitor.
Topic: Climate change and how we got the biota we have today
Abstract: Most ecological and evolutionary theory, even theory built on stochastic dynamics, is formulated for an unchanging environment. However, the history of the Earth is one of continuous climate change, and radical change at that over the past few million years. In his talk, Dr. Mark McPeek will explore these issues and illustrate them using his work on the adaptation and diversification of Enallagma damselflies in North America over the past 15 million years. Periodic climate change over the Pleistocene has continually caused communities to disassemble and the reassemble in different places on the continent. This disassembly/reassembly cycling seems to have driven the diversification of this clade, with unexpected ecological and evolutionary consequences. Given this, Dr. Mark McPeek will argue that current ecological and evolutionary theory is not built for the biota we now have on Earth to study.

*Join us for refreshments in the NIMBioS Lobby on the 4th floor at 3 p.m.

If you are interested in meeting with Dr. McPeek during his visit, please email NIMBioS Postdoctoral Fellow Xavier Thibert-Plante at xavier@nimbios.org

Seminar Flyer (pdf)

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From 2008 until early 2021, NIMBioS was supported by the National Science Foundation through NSF Award #DBI-1300426, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.