Society of Systematic Biologists

Dear EvolDir members We are starting a project on the evolutionary history and biogeography of the Campanula rotundifolia group (angiosperm, Campanulaceae), which includes some 50-60 morphologically-related taxa with different ploidy levels. We are looking for leaf tissues and seeds from populations sampled across the European mountain ranges (i.e. between the Spanish Sierra Nevada and the Carpathians) for next-generation sequencing and flow cytometry analyses. We would like to ask you for help with plant collection in the field. >From each population, we need EITHER well-dried leaf material (silica gel can be provided upon request) from 5 individuals and a well- preserved herbarium voucher, OR 5 mature fruits (capsules) from 5 different individuals. The plants belonging to this group are generally easy to separate from other Campanula species (a specific determination is not necessary at that stage). A detailed sampling protocol will be sent to all people willing to support this project. It would be amazing if you could contribute with some samples growing close to your working place or collected during forthcoming field trips. Contact addresses and plant localities are also highly appreciated. Many thanks in advance for your help! Best wishes, Guilhem Mansion (1) Ludo Mueller (2) Federico Luebert (2) (1) Freie Universität Berlin, Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Königin-Luise-Straße 6 – 8, 14195 Berlin, Germany (E-mail: g.mansion[at]bgbm.org) (2) Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Biologie – Botanik, Altensteinstraße 6, 14195 Berlin, Germany (E-mail: ludo.muller[at]fu- berlin.de; fluebert[at]zedat.fu-berlin.de) Annex - Species included in the Campanula rotundifolia group C alaskana (A. Gray) Wight C albanica Witasek C baumgartenii Becker C baumgartenii subsp. beckiana (Hayek) Podlech C bertolae Colla C bohemica Hruby C caespitosa Scop. C cantabrica Feer C carnica Schiede C carnica subsp. puberula Podlech C cochleariifolia Lam. C excisa Schleich. C ficarioides Timb.-Lagr. C forsythii (Arcang.) Podl. C fritschii Witasek C gentilis Kovanda C giesekiana Vest C gracillima Podl. C hercegovina Degen & Fiala C herminii Hoffmanns. & Link C hispanica Willk. C intercedens Witasek C jaubertiana Timb.-Lagr. C jurjurensis Pomel C justiniana Witasek C longisepala Podl. C macrorhiza Gay ex A. DC. C marcenoi Brullo C marchesettii Witasek C micrantha Bertol. C moravica (Spitzner) Kovanda C petiolata A. DC. C pindicola Aldén C pollinensis Podl. C praesignis Beck C precatoria Timb.-Lagr. C pseudostenocodon Lacaita C pulla L. C raineri Perpenti C rhomboidalis L. C romanica Savul C rotundifolia L. C ruscinonensis Timb.-Lagr. C sabatia De Not. C scheuchzeri Vill. C serrata (Kit.) Hendrych C serrata subsp. recta (Dulac) Podlech C stenocodon Boiss. & Reuter C tanfanii Podl. C tatrae Borbas C trojanensis Kovanda & Ancev C velebitica Borbás C willkommii Witasek C witasekiana Vierh. C xylocarpa Kovanda Dr Guilhem Mansion Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem Freie Universität Berlin Königin-Luise-Straße 6 - 8 14195 Berlin http://www.bgbm.fu-berlin.de/bgbm/STAFF/wiss/Mansion/default.htm Email: g.mansion[at]bgbm.org Tel.: +49 30 838 50 128 Fax: +49 30 838 50 218 "Mansion, Guilhem"

Position #1 Research Associate I (NRS/Lab) position at the University of Rhode Island Perform independent research work at the Regional Conservation Genetics Laboratory (RCGL) at the University of Rhode Island. Organize, coordinate, and supervise support staff, including volunteers and students, engaged on the project. This position is limited to 03/31/2014 with extension contingent on funding. Visit the URI jobs website at: https://jobs.uri.edu to apply and view complete details for job posting # (6001082). Please attach two documents (PDF) to the online Employment Application: (1) A cover letter, and (2) Resume, which includes the names and contact information of three references. Applications will close May 17, 2013. Only online applications will be accepted. The University of Rhode Island is an AA/EEOD employer and values diversity. Office of Human Resources University of Rhode Island 80 Lower College Road Kingston, RI 02881 USA Phone: 401-874-2416 Fax: 401-874-5741 Humanres[at]etal.uri.edu Position #2 Research Associate I (NRS/Field) position at the University of Rhode Island Perform independent research work in support of the Regional Conservation Genetics Laboratory (RCGL) at the University of Rhode Island. Organize, coordinate, and supervise support staff, including volunteers and students, engaged on the project. This position is limited to 03/31/2014 with extension contingent on funding. Visit the URI jobs website at: https://jobs.uri.edu to apply and view complete details for job posting # (6001081). Please attach two documents (PDF) to the online Employment Application: (1) A cover letter, and (2) Resume, which includes the names and contact information of three references. Applications will close May 17, 2013. Only online applications will be accepted. The University of Rhode Island is an AA/EEOD employer and values diversity. Office of Human Resources University of Rhode Island 80 Lower College Road Kingston, RI 02881 USA Phone: 401-874-2416 Fax: 401-874-5741 Humanres[at]etal.uri.edu Sincerely, T.J. -- T.J. McGreevy Jr., Ph.D. Research Associate IV Director of the Regional Conservation Genetics Laboratory Department of Natural Resources Science Room 109 Coastal Institute in Kingston 1 Greenhouse Road University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 tjmcg[at]my.uri.edu office: (401) 874-4040 cell: (401) 481-6151 lab: (401) 874-5812 Thomas Mc Greevy Jr

Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden Corporation Notice of Vacant Post: Senior Botanist/Senior Ecologist JOB SUMMARY The general remit of the post is to implement KFBG's plant and forest conservation and restoration strategy through planning and implementing plant conservation, plant biodiversity assessment and forest restoration projects in Hong Kong. The work will be underpinned by analysing ecological, molecular and environmental data, developing regional to international-level policy recommendations for biodiversity conservation, communicating findings to stakeholders in biodiversity conservation and writing scientific publications and reports relevant to nature conservation. Major projects of the team include permanent forest dynamic plots, forest restoration projects and conservation projects for rare and endangered plants of the region. The job holder will manage a team of three scientific and five to seven ground staff to implement the above duties and to maintain the routine operations of KFBG's native tree nursery and herbarium. Applicants should have a PhD and Postdoctoral experience in the field of botany or ecology (preferably restoration ecology), a minimum of 10 years working experience, strong leadership skills with experience of supervising a team and managing large internally/externally funded projects. Strong communication skills in English, advanced knowledge of statistics, strong computational skills are required. Experience in supervising MSc and PhD students would be a plus. The job holder will primarily be based in Hong Kong, but she/he may also need to work outside Hong Kong to implement projects. Interested parties should send a detailed CV, expected salary, and a short essay (describing relevant work experience and reasons for interest in the post) to: Dr. Gunter Fischer, Head of Flora Conservation Department, Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden Corporation Lam Kam Road, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong Email: gfischer[at]kfbg.org gfischer[at]kfbg.org

NERC-funded PhD studentship available at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, UK. http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/biology/evolutionary-biology/home The studentship will start in October 2013, and will cover full fees and provide a stipend to cover living costs (for UK students). The stipend is determined by NERC and is standard (see http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/postgrad/). The period is three years in the first instance, with possible extension depending on training needs. Applicants are encouraged to contact (including their CV) potential supervisors, at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/biology/evolutionary-biology/staff-profiles), who will provide further information on the application procedure. Applicants should decide a priori the area and laboratory that is of most interest to them, and then contact the appropriate potential supervisor. Applicants should contact supervisors ASAP, as we plan to move quickly on recruitment. Further information at http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/biology/evolutionary-biology/research-opportunities Professor Tom Little Chair of Evolutionary Biology Institute of Evolutionary Biology Kings Buildings University of Edinburgh EH9 3JT UK +44 131 650 7781 tom.little[at]ed.ac.uk http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/groups/tlittle/ Tom Little

Dear colleagues: Last call for registration to the course "GEOMETRIC MORPHOMETRICS AND PHYLOGENY- Fourth edition". End of registration with reduced fee May Th. INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Chris Klingenberg (University of Manchester, UK) . DATES: September 3-6, 2013; 30 teaching hours. PLACE: Els Hostalets de Pierola, Barcelona (Spain). Organized by: Transmitting Science, the Institut Catalᠤe Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont and the Council of Hostalets de Pierola. More information: http://www.transmittingscience.org/courses/gm/gm-and-phylogeny/ or writing to courses[at]transmittingscience.org This workshop provides an overview of the interface between geometric morphometrics and phylogenetics. It aims to give an overview of the different approaches and methods that link the two fields and to enable participants to apply them to their own research problems. Lectures that introduce concepts and methods are integrated with demonstrations of software that put them into practice right away. The main emphasis is on mapping shape data on existing phylogenies to reconstruct the evolutionary history of shape diversification, as well as comparative methods that take phylogeny into account. To enhance the practical approach of the workshop, participants are encouraged to bring their own data to conduct analyses and discuss results. Please feel free to distribute this information between your colleagues if you consider it appropriate. With best regards Soledad De Esteban Trivigno, PhD. soledad.esteban[at]transmittingscience.org

Phylogeneticists are used to the idea of tree thinking, in which evolutionary history is seen as a branching tree-like pattern. Clearly, for many phylogeneticists this has not yet been extended to network thinking, in which evolutionary history can also be seen as a reticulating network. Indeed, I have recently come across several people who have actively insisted that "trees are still central" to phylogenetics (to quote one of my correspondents). As Mindell (2013) has claimed, the Tree of Life is still a useful metaphor, model and heuristic device.

So, there is not just indifference to networks but there seems also to be some resistance to them. This is somewhat unexpected, as a network simplifies to a tree if there are no incompatible phylogenetic signals, and so there is no intrinsic reason to restrict phylogenies to being tree-like.

As a typical example from the literature, Losos et al. (2012) have recently commented:
Although molecular data have rarely changed our understanding of the major multicellular groups of the evolutionary tree of life, they have suggested changes in the relationships within many groups, such as the evolutionary position of whales in the clade of even-toed ungulates. Further investigation has usually resolved conflicts, often by revealing inadequacies in previous morphological studies. This has led to a presumption by many in favor of molecular data.Needless to say this is a biased point of view, because conflicts can also be resolved by revealing inadequacies in molecular studies. For example, molecular analyses involve many subjective decisions about substitution models and rates of molecular change, and any one of the underlying assumptions may be violated. There is no theoretical justification for favouring one source of data over another.

Similarly, there is no theoretical justification for trying to resolve conflicts by preferring one hypothesis over another. Phylogenetic conflicts can also be "resolved" by recognizing that evolutionary history is not necessarily tree-like. Losos et al. do not even consider this possibility:
When two phylogenies are fundamentally discordant, at least one data set must be misleading.In fact, the only misleading thing here is the word "must", because both datasets may be perfectly correct but are simply the product of two different evolutionary histories.

This point is perhaps most obvious when comparing molecular datasets. The evolutionary history revealed by between-gene evolutionary processes (e.g. recombination, hybridization, horizontal gene transfer) often conflicts with that from within-gene processes (e.g. nucleotide substitutions and insertions / deletions), and this leads to a reticulating evolutionary history.

Indeed, the more we learn about genomes the less tree-like does the evolutionary history of species seem to be. There are long-standing controversies regarding the evolutionary history of many taxonomic groups, and it has been hoped that genome-scale data would resolve these controversies. However, to date none of these controversies has been satisfactorily resolved into an unambiguous tree-like genealogical history using genome data. They all apparently involve reticulate evolutionary processes.

For example, the estimated relationships among humans, chimpanzees and gorillas did not change as a result of genome sampling (Galtier and Daubin 2008), nor did those of malaria species (Kuo et al. 2008) nor those of placental superorders (Hallström and Janke 2012). In all three cases the estimated relationships were just as complex after the genome sequencing as before. The resolution of controversial branches in our trees has not occurred as a result of increased access to character data or improved data analyses, but our recognition of reticulating relationships certainly has occurred.

There are many other examples where increased character sampling is yet to resolve long-standing controversies about branching patterns, and where reticulation may also be the true explanation. Birds seem to provide many of these examples (eg. Smith et al. 2013), but insects are a rich source as well (eg. Thomas et al. 2013), and sometimes even plants (eg. Goremykin et al. 2013).

Clearly, when two or more phylogenies are fundamentally discordant, none of the datasets needs to be misleading, because a reticulating history may be involved. Network thinking should thus be a standard tool in the arsenal of every phylogeneticist. Tree thinking excludes networks but network thinking does not exclude trees, and so the more general model will always be the more useful one.

References

Galtier N, Daubin V (2008) Dealing with incongruence in phylogenomic analyses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences 363: 4023-4029.

Goremykin VV, Nikiforova SV, Biggs PJ, Zhong B, Delange P, Martin W, Woetzel S, Atherton RA, McLenachan PA, Lockhart PJ (2012) The evolutionary root of flowering plants. Systematic Biology 62: 50-61.

Hallström BM, Janke A (2012) Mammalian evolution may not be strictly bifurcating. Molecular Biology and Evolution 27: 2804-2816.

Kuo C-H, Wares JP, Kissinger JC (2008) The Apicomplexan whole-genome phylogeny: an analysis of incongruence among gene trees. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25: 2689-2698.

Losos JB, Hillis DM, Greene HW (2012) Who speaks with a forked tongue? Science 338: 1428-1429.

Minell DP (2013) The Tree of Life: metaphor, model, and heuristic device. Systematic Biology 62: 479-489.

Smith JV, Braun EL, Kimball RT (2013) Ratite nonmonophyly: independent evidence from 40 novel loci. Systematic Biology 62: 35-49.

Thomas JA, Trueman JW, Rambaut A, Welch JJ (2013) Relaxed phylogenetics and the Palaeoptera problem: resolving deep ancestral splits in the insect phylogeny. Systematic Biology 62: 285-297.

Wednesday, 12:00 PM at NESCent, Ninth Street and Main Street, Erwin Mill Building, 2024 W. Main Street, Suite A200. For more information, call 919-668-4551.

This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------000803010503040303020703 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Housing and Childcare Updates: 1.>>>>>Housing for the conference is available at Crystal Inn, which is at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon.Crystal Inn offers free airport shuttles. In the AM Crystal Inn will transport to a nearby bus stop for public transportation to Snowbirdand there will be complementary shuttle service from the meeting site back to the hotel late in the evening (10 PM).Rooms are still available at Snowbird from June 23^rd onwards.Call Snowbird accommodations for more information (1-800-232-9542). 2.>>>>>Cabin rental (sleeps up to 14 with two bathrooms and kitchen) is available at Snowbird for the duration of the meeting.Call Snowbird accommodations for more information (1-800-232-9542). 3.>>>>>Priority childcare registration ends June 3^rd .Contact Camp Snowbird for more information By email: campsnowbird[at]snowbird.com (please put 'Evolution 2013' in the subject line) By phone: (801) 933-2256 Evolution 2013 is the joint annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution http://www.evolutionsociety.org/> (SSE), the Society of Systematic Biologists http://systbiol.org/> (SSB), and the American Society of Naturalists http://www.amnat.org/> (ASN), on June 21-25, 2013, at the Snowbird Alpine Village . This meeting is the premier annual opportunity for sharing scientific research related to evolution. Symposia presentations, concurrent contributed papers, and poster sessions will be presented by the 1,400 expected participants. Product and service providers will contribute to the meeting through their exhibits. Social activities will include an opening reception, mixers with each evening poster session, and a super-social/award ceremony - *all of these mixers and receptions are included with registration.* Evolution 2013 meets jointly with the *iEvoBio * conference, which brings together biologists interested in evolution, systematics, biodiversity, software, and mathematics. You can still register for the conference - for more information visit the conference web site: http://www.evolutionmeeting.org/index.html --------------000803010503040303020703 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Housing and Childcare Updates:

1.     >>>>>Housing for the conference is available at Crystal Inn, which is at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Crystal Inn offers free airport shuttles. In the AM Crystal Inn will transport to a nearby bus stop for public transportation to Snowbirdand there will be complementary shuttle service from the meeting site back to the hotel late in the evening (10 PM).  Rooms are still available at Snowbird from June 23rd onwards.  Call Snowbird accommodations for more information (1-800-232-9542).  

2.   >>>>>Cabin rental (sleeps up to 14 with two bathrooms and kitchen) is available at Snowbird for the duration of the meeting.  Call Snowbird accommodations for more information (1-800-232-9542).  

3.    >>>>>Priority childcare registration ends June 3rd.  Contact Camp Snowbird for more information
By email: campsnowbird[at]snowbird.com (please put 'Evolution 2013' in the subject line)
By phone: (801) 933-2256

Evolution 2013 is the joint annual meeting of the http://www.evolutionsociety.org/">Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB), and the http://www.amnat.org/">American Society of Naturalists (ASN), on June 21-25, 2013, at the http://www.snowbirdmeetings.com/?portfolio=snowbird-restaurants">Snowbird Alpine Village.   

This meeting is the premier annual opportunity for sharing scientific research related to evolution. Symposia presentations, concurrent contributed papers, and poster sessions will be presented by the 1,400 expected participants. Product and service providers will contribute to the meeting through their exhibits. Social activities will include an opening reception, mixers with each evening poster session, and a super-social/award ceremony - all of these mixers and receptions are included with registration.

Evolution 2013 meets jointly with the iEvoBio conference, which brings together biologists interested in evolution, systematics, biodiversity, software, and mathematics.

You can still register for the conference - for more information visit the conference web site:
http://www.evolutionmeeting.org/index.html


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