10月31日：Niche conservatism, evolution, and applied ecology: Challenges and opportunities

主讲人：Robert Holt 教授

主持人：陈小勇 教授

开始时间：2016-10-31（周一）上午8:30

讲座地址：闵行校区资环楼435会议室

主办单位：生态与环境科学学院 科技处

报告人简介：

Prof. Robert Holt’s research focuses on theoretical and conceptual issues at the population and community levels of ecological organization, and on the task of linking ecology with evolutionary biology. In addition to basic research, he is interested in bringing modern ecological theory to bear on significant applied problems, particularly in conservation biology. He has also carried out large-scale experiments on habitat fragmentation.

报告摘要：

The ecological niche of a species defines the range of environments in which it can persist, versus go extinct. Both the fossil record and contemporaneous studies reveal that sometimes niches evolve rapidly, but in other situations, niches are highly conservative. Understanding what determines one outcome, versus another, is of great intellectual interest, but also of practical importance, because niche evolution vs. conservatism is involved in for instance conservation, emerging diseases, control of agricultural pests, and projections of responses to climate change. In this lecture, I will first discuss basic elements of the niche concept, and then discuss the elements of a conceptual framework needed to understand niche conservatism and evolution. The talk will include ecological and evolutionary theory, but also touch on many empirical examples that illustrate the basic ideas.