Early in the morning there were no whole sessions that consistently peaked my interest, so I spent my morning bouncing between a variety of talks. Tomas Brodin gave an interesting talk entitled “Can environmental filtering of animal personalities promote speciation?”. Working with frogs that disperse from the mainland to nearby islands outside Umea, Sweden, Brodin Read More
Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionI began the second full day of talks at Evolution 2010 presiding over the only education session in the entire meeting, a session which also included my talk for the meeting. It is a bit surprising that our session, which was forced to start at 8 am on a Sunday, was the only one dedicated Read More
A Major Post, Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionI spent the morning of the first full day of Evolution 2010 in a variety of talks, most of which were themed on sociality. Surprisingly, a great number of these talks tackled the difficult and controversial topic of group selection. I think that it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not as easy to Read More
Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionSean Carroll got the Evolution 2010 meeting going with the Stephen J. Gould Award lecture on Friday night. His talk was called “Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species”, and basically outlined sections of his new book of the same title. A large and enthusiastic crowd was on hand to Read More
Conferences, Evolution, Society for the Study of EvolutionDuring Tuesday evening of ESA’s meeting I attended a really great special session entitled “Big Models in Ecology: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly Are All Possible Outcomes”. Organized by Vince Gutschick, the session began with a series of overviews by Gutschick, Lou Gross, Lara Prihodko, and Matthew Potts. It then opened up for a Read More
A Major Post, Computing, Conferences, Ecological Modeling, Ecological Society of America, Individual-based Models, Mathematics, Talks & SeminarsAt lunchtime I attended a workshop dedicated to helping participants to integrate environmental justice content into ecology courses. The workshop started off with an introduction by Leanne Jablonski. She discussed the absence of ecologists (and therefore the science of ecology) in the environmental justice movement and the need to connect ecologists to communities suffering from Read More
A Major Post, Allometries, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Environmental Justice, Human Evolution, Macroecology, Talks & SeminarsI spent Tuesday morning in a really well-organized symposium entitled “Mutualistic Networks”. Headed up by Jordi Bascompte, the collected talks focused on the network architecture of mutualistic interactions, mostly among plants and their various insect pollinators. I came in with only a very basic understanding of matrix-based interaction networks, but Bascompte’s introduction to the session Read More
A Major Post, Competition, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Interactions, Mutualism, Mutualistic Networks, Parasitism, Pollination, Predation, System Stability, Talks & SeminarsSunny Power started off the first full day of ESA’s meeting with a great overview of where the society has been and where it is headed. My impression has been that ESA has been slowly asserting its rightful place as not only a source of scientific information relevant to policy but also an active commentator Read More
A Major Post, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Education, Public Policy, Senescence, Sustainability, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Urban EcologyToday I arrive in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am here to attend the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting and give a talk entitled “Virtual Prairie Dogs Weigh in on the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis”. I have never been to Albuquerque and when I mapped the various locations where I will be during the conference I Read More
A Major Post, Conferences, Ecological Society of America, Freshwater Ecosystems, Talks & Seminars, Water Supply