EvoEvent: Exploring the Tree of Life

On September 24th, Evo-Group and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology will be hosting a one-day symposium entitled EvoEvent: Exploring the Tree of Life: Phylogenetics, Specimen-based Research, and Comparative Biology, sponsored by the AD White Professors-at-Large Program.

Our goal is to celebrate the broad diversity of comparative organismal research on Cornell’s campus with a day of talks and discussions. Our speakers, both from Cornell and invited guests, represent a diversity of research perspectives and approaches to studying evolutionary relationships across a range of biological systems, comparing the phenotypes that underlie that diversity, and often assessing biological diversity through specimen-based research. We will host fourteen talks in four sessions, with plenty of additional time for discussion and socializing. Attendance is free, coffee and lunch will be provided, and the day will close with a reception with hors d’oeuvres and drinks.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Schedule

9:00-9:40 am Coffee and Welcome

Session I

9:40-10:00 am -- Anurag Agrawal “Comparative tests of plant defense theory”

10:00-10:20 am – Luke Harmon “Scaling the tree of life”

10:20-10:40 am – Leo Campagna “The evolution of flightlessness in Patagonian Steamer Ducks”

10:40-11:00 am – Bryan Danforth “Dating the antiquity of pollenivory in bees and wasps”

11:00 am Coffee Break

Session II

11:30-11:50 am – Andy Moeller “Co-diversification of gut bacteria with mammalian species”

11:50 am-12:10 pm – Chelsea Specht “Between Bananas and Gingers: using fossils and loads of characters to tease apart an ancient radiation”

12:10 pm-12:30 pm – Casey Dillman “Changing Through Time: Community Structure, Phenotypes, and Natural History Collections”

12:30-12:50 pm – Kerry Shaw “The Hawaiian cricket Laupala:  arguments for a non-adaptive radiation and its relevance to adaptive radiation”

12:50 pm Lunch

Session III

2:10 - 3:00 pm – David Hillis “Phylogeny, Gene Duplication, and the Evolution of Vertebrate Nervous Systems”

3:00 -3:20 pm – Corrie Moreau “Using Museum Collections for Phylogenomics and to Understand the Impacts of Climatic Change”

3:20 pm Coffee Break

Session IV

3:50-4:10 pm – Adam Summers “How and why to scan ALL the fishes”

4:10-4:30 pm – Patrick O’Grady “Timing and diversification of Hawaiian Insects”

4:30-4:50 pm – Vanya Rohwer “Higher nest predation favors rapid fledging at the cost of plumage quality in nestling birds”

4:50-5:10 PM – Harry Greene “Specimen-based natural history and the Tree of Life”

5:10-6:45 pm Reception