Society of Systematic Biologists

A major trend in evolutionary biology is the progression towards analytical approaches that synthesize a wide array of data sources to test hypotheses about evolutionary history and the processes the produced it. In this context, Bayesian inference has proved particularly useful in allow the direct incorporation of information from the fossil record, molecular sequences, geographical locations and habitat into coherent model-based estimation and hypothesis testing procedures. The BEAST software package provide a broard range of models for evolutionary analysis from coalescent-based population genetics to relaxed phylogenetics. The aim of this project is to coordinate activities in this burgeoning area, through a series of working group meetings centered around developments of the open source BEAST software package. The output of these meeting will be version 2.0 of the BEAST software, with an ambitious set of goals including the Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of trees with >1000 taxa. This working group will bring together evolutionary biologists, biostatiticians and software developers from three continents, that span the full range of evolutionary analysis from population genetics to molecular ecology and deep phylogeny.

The recent NESCent catalysis meeting, Evolution of Insect Sociality: An Integrative Modeling Approach, was assembled to ask if novel approaches might be envisioned that could lead to a clearer understanding of the empirical and theoretical foundations of sociality. Here we propose an approach arising from that meeting that is truly novel: a data-first undertaking, unconstrained by a priori categories and concepts. Our goals are to: (1) assemble a database of social attributes across group-living taxa (currently no such database exists), (2) discover new classifications of sociality, broadly applicable across group-living animals, that emerge naturally from the data, (3) relate broad-scale data-based outcomes to existing classifications and theories of social evolution, and (4) deliver a data-based foundation for modeling social evolution and comparative studies by the community of social theorists and researchers. This social trait database will be the first of its kind, and provide a broadly integrative framework of social behaviors for further theoretical and data-based explorations in social biology.

The recent NESCent catalysis meeting, Evolution of Insect Sociality: An Integrative Modeling Approach, was assembled to ask if novel approaches might be envisioned that could lead to a clearer understanding of the empirical and theoretical foundations of sociality. Here we propose an approach arising from that meeting that is truly novel: a data-first undertaking, unconstrained by a priori categories and concepts. Our goals are to: (1) assemble a database of social attributes across group-living taxa (currently no such database exists), (2) discover new classifications of sociality, broadly applicable across group-living animals, that emerge naturally from the data, (3) relate broad-scale data-based outcomes to existing classifications and theories of social evolution, and (4) deliver a data-based foundation for modeling social evolution and comparative studies by the community of social theorists and researchers. This social trait database will be the first of its kind, and provide a broadly integrative framework of social behaviors for further theoretical and data-based explorations in social biology.

Why are some genes imprinted, where the maternally or paternally inherited copies are preferentially expressed? Ever since the paradoxical pattern of imprinted gene expression was discovered evolutionary theories have strived to answer this question. Consequently, theories built on different fundamental assumptions have proliferated. Although these theories should make distinct and testable predictions, there have been few tests aimed at formally differentiating between these competing ideas. However, despite the general lack of such tests, the ‘kinship theory’, and especially its most prominent component, the ‘conflict hypothesis’, has emerged as the favored theory. This predominance is most notably reflected in the literature outside of evolutionary biology, where the conflict hypothesis is regularly used to interpret the functions and effects of imprinted genes. The conflict hypothesis rose to dominance because it appears to explain the effects of the first imprinted genes discovered. However, data from a broader array of genes in model species and emerging insights from non-model species appear to challenge whether one hypothesis adequately explains all occurrences of imprinting. We propose a working group composed of theoretical, computational and empirical biologists that will develop a set of formal predictions and devise tests to differentiate between competing models for the evolution of genomic imprinting. In doing so, we also expect to identify unexplored problems in evolutionary theory. Understanding why genes are imprinted also has important implications for evolutionary medicine since imprinted genes play a crucial role during pregnancy, in the manifestation of several behavioral disorders, and in some cancers.

We propose a catalysis meeting to advance theoretically-grounded, empirical study of scientific collaborations designed to achieve synthesis. Synthesis is the integration of diverse theories, methods and data across spatial or temporal scales, scientific phenomena, and forms of expertise to increase the generality, parsimony, applicability, or empirical soundness of scientific explanations. It generates emergent explanations beyond the scope of any one discipline, dataset or method. It counterbalances scientific specialization, capitalizes on existing data, and can be used to address complex problems. Synthesis centers are an increasingly vital component of science policy, rising in number, size, and prominence nationally and globally. Despite this, our understanding of synthesis-group collaborations and their performance are inadequate to advance knowledge, inform policy and guide practice. This meeting will draw together scientists who lead and conduct synthetic research with a diverse group of experts on scientific collaboration and research evaluation. Our aim is to advance understanding of synthesis and develop new approaches for investigating it empirically, longitudinally and comparatively.

We propose to organize a catalysis meeting on the theme of diversification of North American rodents based on historical biogeography, phylogeography, fossils, and landscape history. The research group includes specialists in paleoecology, biogeography, molecular phylogenetics, evolution, functional morphology, isotope ecology and physiology, landscape history, and computational methods and represents the first synthesis of its kind. The group will focus on North American rodents and landscape history over the last 25 million years to forge conceptual and methodological bridges across disciplines for effective collaboration. The goal is to develop a research program to evaluate how landscape history, including tectonics and climate, influences diversification of rodents in different geohistorical contexts. The wealth of information available to be synthesized and range of expertise in the research group offer strong prospects for achieving fundamental insights about ecological and evolutionary processes affecting diversification. The meeting will focus on integrating phylogenetic, paleontological, paleoenvironmental, and geohistorical datasets and framing of tractable research questions that will form the basis for proposal(s) to NSF. We anticipate that this research will become a model for analyzing diversity dynamics across spatial and temporal scales for a broad range of groups and geohistorical records.

Meta-analysis is a statistical technique used for syntheses of results from numerous independent studies. Increasingly, evolutionary biologists need to perform meta-analysis in which the effects of numerous explanatory variables on a response variable of interest are considered, taking into account the evolutionary history of the species in the dataset. However, such analyses require analysis of numerous complex statistical models, and methods for such analyses have not been previously developed. Our working group is developing these methods and applying them to understand local adaptation, context-dependency, and the influence of evolutionary relationships on outcomes of symbiosis between plants and mycorrhizal fungi.

We propose a catalyst meeting to consider progress, challenges and future directions for sexual selection studies, i.e., research topics related to mating dynamics, parent-offspring relations, and family organization. In advance of the meeting, participants will prepare a working document to be discussed and finalized during the meeting and used subsequently as the basis for submissions to international journals. Focus topics for the document and meeting break-out groups are: Sexual Selection Today, Null Hypothesis for Sexual Selection, Good Genes, Parental Investment, Social Bond, Individual Variation and Personality, Hormones, Physiology and Genetics, Economics of Mating and Family, and Sexual Selection Studies in the Humanities. Participants include science scholars from biology and psychology, as well as humanists from history, philosophy and gender studies, and from the social sciences of economics and political science. Participants span a spectrum of nationalities, ages and professional seniority.

This working group proposal wishes to bring together software engineers and biologists that - instead of addressing a particular evolutionary question – are proposing to design and implement the software that is essential in evolutionary genomics so that questions can be asked in the first place. Evolutionary and ecological functional genomics (EFFG) is the study - with the aid of genomic technologies - of ecology and evolution of ‘non-model species’. With Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), the grand challenge in evolutionary genomic science is no longer the generation of data but deciphering them. The capability to convert sequence data to knowledge is, however, still locked in the discipline of bioinformatics because the data forms are not suitable for processing by research biologists. We have two solutions: 1) train domain experts in basic data processing informatics and 2) develop Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) to view and analyse EEFG data. We require a single platform that can facilitate mining, analysis and annotation of comparative data for genetics, ecology and genomics. It should be easy to setup and easier to use. It should be modular, with contributions from multiple labs. Because informaticians and software engineers are better at implementing rather than designing biological applications, this proposed working group will bring together i) professional curators; ii) informaticians and iii) comparative genomicists with the scope to a) form and implement a roadmap for teaching/importing biocuration practices into the field of comparative genomics b) delivering user-friendly software for the analysis and curation of data relevant to EEFG.

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Evolutionary biology is a foundational and integrative science for medicine, but few physicians or medical researchers are familiar with its most relevant principles. While undergraduate students have increasing opportunities to learn about the interface of evolution, health, and disease, most premedical students have scant room for electives in their schedules, few premed prerequisite courses incorporate evolutionary thinking, and no medical school develops these competencies. The overarching goal of this Working Group is to lay the groundwork for future endeavors by providing testable models and pathways for infusing premedical and medical education with evolutionary thinking. This Working Group, an interdisciplinary, international, and intergenerational group of physicians, scientists, educators, and students, will 1) define core competencies in evolutionary biology for physicians and other health professionals; 2) investigate the ability of current curricula to prepare health professionals to meet these standards; 3) identify “teachable moments” that provide opportunities to integrate evolutionary principles into premedical and medical curricula; 4) design model curricula and learning experiences that can advance evolutionary education for health professionals; and 5) provide open access to these resources and disseminate them. The Working Group will be supported by an Advisory Committee of senior academic leaders and stakeholders. These efforts will not be sufficient in themselves, but they will establish the intellectual platform from which educational interventions on student learning, and scientific and clinical problem solving, can be developed and tested.

Understanding how organisms will adapt to changing environments is one of the main challenges facing biology, and evolutionary biologists are uniquely positioned to make important contributions in this area. However, evolutionary biologists have only a poor understanding of how environmental change will affect evolution in natural populations. A better description of the relationship between the environment and natural selection is essential to attaining this understanding, because natural selection underpins adaptive evolution, and its strength and form is influenced by environmental variation. In this Working Group we will quantify two important ways in which the environment may affect selection: (a) how it moulds the distribution of traits that are exposed to selection, through its effect on their expression and development and (b) how it shapes the relationship between phenotype and fitness. We will use recently developed integral projection models and existing long-term and spatially replicated datasets to achieve this synthesis. Our approach will improve our ability to predict the dynamics of adaptation to environmental change, and will increase our fundamental understanding of evolution.

This Working Group brings together paleontologists, K-12 science education specialists, and museum education staff to design and deliver innovative programming that uses fossils to engage students in explorations of evolutionary concepts. Students will investigate changes in biodiversity through time, test hypotheses of phylogenetic relationship, and examine the causes and consequences of mass extinctions, all using authentic fossil data. We will partner with local schools and community groups to share this programming with public school students in Chicago, Denver, and Philadelphia. Undergraduate and graduate students who are themselves under-represented minorities will serve as facilitators and mentors. Extensive pre- and post-assessment measures will allow us to measure prior understandings and attitudes and to evaluate learning gains. Research questions to be explored include comparing field-based vs. classroom-based learning, evaluating the use of 3D geospatial visualizations of biodiversity changes and extinctions through time, and measuring student gains in scientific reasoning skills.

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.

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.

Dryad is a nonprofit organization and an international repository of data underlying scientific and medical publications. The scientific, educational, and charitable mission of Dryad is to promote the availability of data underlying findings in the scientific literature for research and educational reuse. The vision of Dryad is a scholarly communication system in which learned societies, publishers, institutions of research and education, funding bodies and other stakeholders collaboratively sustain and promote the preservation and reuse of data underlying the scholarly literature.

http://software-carpentry.org/bootcamps/2013-05-nescent.html