4/14 Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Symposium program (sample)

EDWARD O. WILSON

BIODIVERSITY SYMPOSIUMApril 22-24, 2014at The University of AlabamaTuscaloosa, AL

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Schedule of Events

Schedule of Events 6

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

7:00 am Registration/Check-in: North Lobby, Bryant-Denny Stadium

7:30 am Continental Breakfast: The Zone, Bryant-Denny Stadium

8:00 am Welcome: Dr. Robert Olin, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences The Zone, Bryant-Denny Stadium

8:00 am “Life in the Treetops: Challenges of a Woman Arbornaut” Dr. Meg Lowman

9:10 am Questions 9:25 am Break 9:45 am “Experimental Studies of Biodiversity in Nature, Where Ecology Meets Evolution” Dr. Jonathan B. Losos 10:25 am Questions

10:40 am Break

11:00 am “Evolutionary Innovations in Extreme Environments: Hermaphroditic Fish Adapted to Life on Land” Dr. Ryan L. Earley

11:20 am Questions

11:30 am Panel Discussion: The Zone, Bryant-Denny Stadium

11:50 am Buffet Lunch: Recruitment Room, First Floor, Bryant-Denny Stadium

1:30 pm “Snakes and Primates, an 80 Million Year Dialog?” Dr. Harry W. Greene 2:10 pm Questions

2:25 pm Break

2:45 pm “The Coastal Plain of the Southeastern United States: An Overlooked and Underappreciated Biodiversity Hotspot” Dr. D. Bruce Means 3:25 pm Questions 3:40 pm Break 4:00 pm “Suture Zones and Cryptic Biodiversity in Alabama” Dr. Leslie J. Rissler

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Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Symposium 7

4:20 pm Questions

4:30 pm Panel Discussion

4:50 pm Day One Concludes

7:00 pm Plenary Session: “The State of Global Biodiversity” Dr. Edward O. Wilson Concert Hall, Moody Music Building

8:30 pm Book Signing for “A Window on Eternity: Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique” Lobby, Moody Music Building

Wednesday, April 23, 2014 7:00 am Registration/Check-in: North Lobby, Bryant-Denny Stadium

8:00 am Continental Breakfast: The Zone, Bryant-Denny Stadium

8:30 am “Penguins as Marine Sentinels” Dr. P. Dee Boersma 9:10 am Questions

9:25 am Break

9:45 am “Hidden Worlds: Biodiversity of Marine Microbes” Dr. E. Virginia Armbrust

10:25 am Questions 10:40 am Break 11:00 am “Plant Biodiversity in the Tree of Life” Dr. Juan M. Lopez-Bautista

11:20 am Questions

11:30 am Panel Discussion

11:50 am Buffet Lunch: Recruitment Room, First Floor, Bryant-Denny Stadium

1:30 pm “After Biodiversity: Valuing Nature for the 20th Century” Dr. Sahotra Sarkar 2:10 pm Questions 2:25 pm Break

2:45 pm “Genomes, Feathers, and Flight: Biodiversity and Evolution Through the Lens of Genomics” Dr. Scott V. Edwards

3:25 pm Questions

3:40 pm Break


4:00 pm “What Is Biodiversity?” Dr. Richard A. Richards 4:20 pm Questions 4:30 pm Panel Discussion 4:50 pm Day Two Concludes

7:00 p.m. “Alabama’s Biodiversity: Inspiring A New Century of Discovery” A Tribute to Dr. Edward O. Wilson Concert Hall, Moody Music Building Admission $10 minimum donation to the Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Fellows Endowment at The University of Alabama. (See additional information on page 24 of this program.)

Thursday, April 24, 2014 8:00 am Continental Breakfast: The Zone, Bryant-Denny Stadium

8:30 am Poster Presentations: The Zone, Bryant-Denny Stadium

9:30 am “How Humans and Ants Conquered the World” Dr. Edward O. Wilson 10:10 am Questions

10:30 am Break

10:50 am “Alabama’s Biodiversity: What We Have, Why We Have It, and Why It Matters” Dr. R. Scot Duncan

11:30 am Questions

Noon Buffet Lunch: Recruitment Room, First Floor, Bryant-Denny Stadium

1:15 pm “Virus Biodiversity: Mutation, Genetic Differences, Selection, Propagation, Disease” Dr. Michael B. A. Oldstone 1:55 pm Questions

2:10 pm “Soil Invertebrates: The Elephants and Tigers of the Antarctic Dry Valleys” Dr. Diana H. Wall 2:50 pm Questions

3:00 pm Panel Discussion

3:20 pm Break

3:40 pm Dissertation Research Briefings: Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Fellows Scotty DePriest, Mike Kendrick, and Samantha Perkins 4:15 pm Questions

4:30 pm Symposium Concludes

RIGHT: Denny Chimes on UA’s main Quadrangle.Schedule of Events8


E. VIRGINIA ARMBRUST is the direc-tor and a professor of the School of Ocean-ography at the University of Washington. She earned her bachelor’s from Stanford University and her doctorate in biologi-cal oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Armbrust’s research focuses on marine phytoplank-ton, a group of microbes responsible for about 40 percent of the total amount of photosynthesis that occurs on our planet. These organisms play a critical role in the global carbon cycle and ultimately in the global climate. Her research addresses the response of marine microbial communities to changing environmental conditions, in-cluding changes in biodiversity. She com-bines physiological, genomic, and com-putational approaches with instrument development to understand the distribu-tion and capabilities of and interactions among marine microbes. Armbrust heads the Center for Environmental Genomics at the University of Washington, which brings together researchers with expertise in oceanography, microbiology, genomics, engineering, and data visualization. She is a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator in Marine Microbiology and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Society of Microbiology.

Presenter Biographies10

Presenter Biographies

P. DEE BOERSMA holds the Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science at the University of Washington and is the founder and executive editor of Conservation maga-zine, an award-winning publication dedicated to conservation science. Dubbed the “Jane Goodall of penguins” by The New York Times, Boersma is passionate about seabirds. She has shown that even a small oil spill over a hun-dred kilometers from their nest can cause fork-tailed storm-petrels to feed contaminated food to their offspring and that climate variation can cause Galapagos penguins to desert their eggs and chicks. Boersma considers penguins “marine sentinels,” sounding the alarm on en-vironmental threats to ocean ecosystems. For 30 years, she has been the director of the Wild-life Conservation Society’s study of Magellanic penguins at Punta Tombo, Argentina, home of the world’s largest colony of Magellanic pen-guins. Boersma and her students follow the lives of individual penguins, monitor the colony, and develop the data needed to plan effective conservation efforts. In the Galapagos Islands she is building “condos” to increase the Gala-pagos penguin population. Boersma received a 2009 Heinz Foundation award for achieve-ments leading toward a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable world; was awarded a 2010 Fulbright fellowship to study wildlife videogra-phy in New Zealand; and, in 2011, was named one of the Nature Conservancy’s “Conserva-tion Heroes of the last 50 years.” In 2012, she received the Ocean Conservation Award from the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. In April 2013, Boersma published her first book with colleague and academic “grandson” Pablo Borboroglu, titled Penguins: Natural History and Conservation. The book has been a huge success.

R. SCOT DUNCAN is an associate pro-fessor of biology and urban environmen-tal studies at Birmingham-Southern Col-lege. Originally from Pensacola, Florida, he received a bachelor’s in biology from Eckerd College in 1993, and then studied tropical forest conservation while earn-ing a master’s and a doctorate in zoology from the University of Florida in 1997 and 2001, respectively. Duncan has done eco-logical research in Antarctica, Costa Rica, Panama, Uganda, Florida, and Alabama. He took a position at BSC in 2002 and teaches courses in conservation, ecology, and environmental studies. His current research focuses on the ecology of endan-gered species and threatened ecosystems in Alabama, including the Ketona dolo-mite glades, montane longleaf pine wood-lands, and the watercress darter. Duncan is the chief architect and science writer for TrekBirmingham.com, an environmental education and recreational resource for the greater Birmingham area. Duncan is also the author of Southern Wonder: Alabama’s Surprising Biodiversity (2013, University of Alabama Press). Written for a general audience, this work interweaves the disci-plines of ecology, evolution, climatology, and geology to explain clearly, and color-fully, why Alabama is so biologically rich and why its species and ecosystems need careful preservation.

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RYAN L. EARLEY is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at The University of Alabama. He received his doctorate from the University of Louisville and was a National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia. Earley is a member of the Evolution Working Group, Center for Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems, and Center for Freshwater Studies at The University of Alabama. He recently partici-pated in two workshops sponsored by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center that aimed to forward next-generation ap-proaches to the evolution of complex social behavior and evolutionary developmen-tal biology. Earley received a 2012 Out-standing Commitment to Teaching Award from The University of Alabama National Alumni Association for his commitment to employing hypothesis-driven active-learn-ing strategies in the classroom, where he teaches animal behavior and endocrinol-ogy, and as a research mentor to more than 130 undergraduate students since arriving at The University of Alabama in 2008. His integrative research program focuses on the physiological and evolutionary mecha-nisms driving variation in reproductive behavior, attractiveness, aggression, risk-taking, and life history traits in a variety of fish species. Earley’s laboratory houses one of Earth’s most intriguing creatures, the mangrove rivulus fish (more than 4,500 animals). This fish is the only vertebrate capable of “cloning” itself through sexual reproduction and can live out of water for more than two months.

SCOTT V. EDWARDS is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and curator of ornithology in the Museum of Com-parative Zoology and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He came to Harvard in December 2003 after serving as a fac-ulty member for nine years in the zoology department and the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. Edwards earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1986 and his doctorate from the Depart-ment of Zoology at the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley, in 1992. He conducted postdoctoral research in avian disease genetics at the University of Florida. He has conducted fieldwork throughout the United States, Australia, and the Pacific region and has interests in many aspects of avian biology, including evolutionary history and biogeography, disease ecology, and population genetics. He has served on National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration, the senior ad-visory board of the U.S. National Evolu-tionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), and the advisory boards of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian. Ed-wards oversees a program funded by the National Science Foundation to increase the diversity of undergraduates in evolu-tionary biology and biodiversity science. He is currently serving as director of the Division of Biological Infrastructure in the Biology Directorate of the National Sci-ence Foundation.

HARRY W. GREENE graduated from Texas Wesleyan University in 1968 and served as a medic in the U.S. Army before earning a master’s degree from the Univer-sity of Texas at Arlington and a doctorate from the University of Tennessee. He was a professor and curator in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, for two decades before moving to Cornell University in 1999. He has taught vertebrate natural history, herpetology, introductory biol-ogy, evolution and biodiversity, and field ecology while studying predator evolution, ecology, and conservation. Greene’s honors include Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award, and a Stephen H. Weiss Presiden-tial Fellowship; he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advance-ment of Science and California Academy of Sciences; and he served as president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. In 2013 Business Insider named him one of Cornell’s “Top Ten Pro-fessors.” Greene has written some 200 pub-lications, including Snakes: the Evolution of Mystery in Nature, which won a PEN Liter-ary Award and made The New York Times’ annual list of 100 Most Notable Books. His latest book, Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art, was published in October 2013.

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Presenter Biographies 12

JUAN M. LOPEZ-BAUTISTA is a pro-fessor in the Department of Biological Sci-ences, curator of algae, and College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Board Fellow at The University of Alabama. He received his doctorate in plant biology from Louisiana State University, a master’s in biology from the University of North Carolina at Wilm-ington, and was a National Science Foun-dation Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Lopez-Bautista was recently elected as the 2013 president of the Phycological Society of America. He is the associate chair for research in the Department of Biological Sciences at UA and serves as the advisor for UA marine sciences undergraduates. His research focuses on the biodiversity, systematics, and phylogenomics of marine and terrestrial algae. Most recent projects funded by the National Science Founda-tion are the assembling of the tree of life for green and red algae, where morphol-ogy-based classifications are working hy-potheses to be tested using next-generation sequencing-based analyses. He teaches courses in biology of algae, plant biology, and advanced phycology. He is an avid worldwide explorer and algae collector.

JONATHAN B. LOSOS, evolutionary bi-ologist, graduated from Harvard University’s Harvard College and received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. After teaching for 14 years at Washington University in Saint Louis, Losos moved to Harvard University in 2006, where he is the Monique and Philip Lehner Professor of the Study of Latin America in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, as well as curator of herpetology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Losos has written more than 150 papers plus a book, Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adap-tive Radiation of Anoles, which was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. In addition, he has edited three books, most recently serving as editor-in-chief for the Princeton Guide to Evolutionary Biology. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dobzhansky Prize, the David Starr Jordan Prize, and the Edward O. Wil-son Naturalist Award. Losos’s research takes a multidisciplinary, integrative approach to understanding evolutionary diversification. Focusing on the diversity of lizards in the ge-nus Anolis, Losos combines studies of ecol-ogy, behavior, functional morphology, and systematics to address why the evolutionary radiation of anoles – which includes more than 400 species – has been so successful and how particular species adapt to their envi-ronments. To address these questions, Losos and colleagues conduct field experiments in nature, sequence DNA, observe animals in their natural habitats, and bring lizards into the laboratory for functional and develop-mental studies.

MEG LOWMAN, nicknamed the “real-life Lorax” by National Geographic and “Einstein of the treetops” by The Wall Street Journal, pioneered the science of canopy ecology. For more than 30 years, she has designed hot-air balloons and walkways for treetop explora-tion to solve mysteries in the world’s forests, especially insect pests and ecosystem health. Lowman is affectionately called the mother of canopy research as one of the first scien-tists to explore this eighth continent. She relentlessly works to map the canopy for biodiversity and to champion forest conser-vation around the world. Her international network and passion for science have led her into leadership roles where she seeks best practices to solve environmental chal-lenges and serves as a role model to women and minorities in science. Formerly a profes-sor at North Carolina State University and the founding director of North Carolina’s innovative Nature Research Center at the Museum of Natural Sciences, Lowman over-saw the creation, construction, staffing, and programming of this research wing in part-nership with NCSU. She was subsequently hired by the California Academy of Sciences to lead its 21st-century strategy integrating research with sustainability initiatives both local and global. As the external voice for the academy’s collections and research, she promotes its mission to groups ranging from elementary school classes to corporate execu-tives to international conferences. Lowman’s academic leadership has included vice presi-dent of the Ecological Society of America; treasurer of the Association for Tropical Biol-ogy and Conservation; founder of the TREE Foundation; member of the board of direc-tors for The Explorers Club and Earthwatch; and climate change advisor to Alex Sink, former CFO of the Florida Cabinet. Previ-ously, she served as director of environmental initiatives at New College of Florida, CEO of The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, and professor of biology and environmental stud-ies at Williams College. Lowman’s academic

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Ecologist D. BRUCE MEANS obtained his doctorate from Florida State University in 1975 studying the ecology of the Florida panhandle. A past director of Tall Timbers Research Station (1976-1984), he has served as executive director of the Coastal Plains In-stitute and Land Conservancy since 1984 and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University, a position he has held since 1976. Means is a field ecologist with 50 years’ experience, and his main research interests center on fire ecol-ogy, ecosystems of the southeastern United States, longleaf pine ecosystems, ecology of South American tepuis, biogeography, pond ecology, amphibians and reptiles, and rare and endangered species. He has published four books and 270 scientific research pa-pers, contract reports, and popular articles that have appeared in Natural History, Na-tional Geographic, International Wildlife, Na-tional Wildlife, BBC Wildlife, South American Explorer and other natural history magazines. He is coauthor of Priceless Florida, Natural Ecosystems and Native Species, a book with more than 800 color photographs of Florida’s natural treasures. He has co-produced and starred in numerous documentary films for National Geographic Explorer, BBC Televi-sion, and PBS. His most exciting recent re-search is the discovery of an unrecognized biodiversity hotspot on unexplored mesas called tepuis in South America, where he has found eight frogs (including a new family), giant earthworms, and freshwater crabs new to science.

MICHAEL B. A. OLDSTONE is a profes-sor in the Department of Immunology and Microbial Science at The Scripps Research Institute, where he heads the Viral-Immu-nobiology Laboratory. His contributions include understanding how both acute and persistent viral infection disorders the host’s immune system, causing disease, and therapeutic remedies to overcome such in-fections. His studies on persistent infection uncovered the role for genetic biodiversity of viruses and viral-induced host factors that subvert the immune system. The com-bination of genetically selected mutant vi-rus and host factors like interferon type I, IL-10, and PD-1/PD-L1 can lead in vivo to viral persistence in differentiated cells resulting in disordered homeostasis and disease. Persistent viral infections in hosts with the appropriate genetic background can also initiate or enhance autoimmune disease. By the fruits of his laboratory’s findings, Oldstone was elected to the Na-tional Academy of Sciences and the Insti-tute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and he has been the recipient of numerous international and national scientific awards and honors. Oldstone is also a visiting professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, at The University of Alabama’s main campus in Tuscaloosa.

RICHARD A. RICHARDS is a professor of philosophy and a Leadership Board Fac-ulty Fellow at The University of Alabama. He received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, where he received a certificate in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and technology. His work is primarily in the history and philos-ophy of biology and on a variety of topics: Darwin, species, biological classification, sexual selection, phylogenetic inference, and evidence. His book, The Species Prob-lem, was published in 2010 by Cambridge University Press. He is working on another book with Cambridge, titled Biological Classification: A Philosophical Introduction.

training includes Williams College (Bach-elor of Arts in biology); Aberdeen Univer-sity (Master of Science in ecology); Sydney University (doctorate in botany); and Tuck School of Business (executive management). Her numerous awards include the Margaret Douglas Medal for Excellence in Conserva-tion Education from the Garden Club of America, Girls Inc. Visionary Award, the Mendel Medal for achievements in science and spirit, the Lowell Thomas Medal for canopy exploration, Kilby Laureate, and Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow. She has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed sci-entific publications, and her first book, Life in the Treetops, received a cover review in The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Work-ing tirelessly on sustainability initiatives at home and abroad, “CanopyMeg” was a Ful-bright Senior Specialist Scholar to both India and Ethiopia, and National Geographic funds her conservation work on Ethiopian church forests. She is the proud mother of sons Ed-ward and James, both science majors from Princeton University.

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Presenter Biographies14

LESLIE J. RISSLER is an associate pro-fessor in the Department of Biological Sci-ences and curator of herpetology at The University of Alabama. She received her doctorate from the University of Virginia and was a National Science Foundation Bioinformatics postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Rissler is chair of the Evolution Working Group at The University of Alabama. This interdisci-plinary group of faculty and staff promotes the importance and reality of evolution to the public through various activities includ-ing the ALLELE series (Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution), now in its eighth year. She is also co-director of the evolutionary studies minor in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, one of only four such minors in the country. Rissler recently served as a program director at the National Science Foundation (2011-2013) in the Direc-torate of Biological Sciences, Division of Environmental Biology. Her research inte-grates ecology and evolution with a focus on amphibian biodiversity, biogeography, systematics, and conservation genetics. She teaches courses in evolution, conservation biology, and field zoology. One recent and much publicized discovery by Rissler and colleagues was a new frog species in New York, New York.

SAHOTRA SARKAR is a professor in the departments of philosophy and integra-tive biology at the University of Texas at Austin. He obtained his bachelor’s from Columbia University and his master’s and doctorate at the University of Chicago. Be-fore coming to Texas, he taught at McGill University and held fellowships at the Wis-senschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science at Ber-lin, and the Dibner Institute at the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology. Sarkar specializes in the history and philosophy of science, environmental philosophy, conservation biology, and disease ecology. He is the author of six books, including Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), Environmental Philos-ophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), and System-atic Conservation Planning (co-authored with Chris Margues, Cambridge, 2007) and more than 200 articles, mostly in phi-losophy and conservation biology.

DIANA H. WALL is a University Distin-guished Professor and director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University. She is also a profes-sor of biology and senior scientist at the Natu-ral Resource Ecology Laboratory at CSU. Wall’s research explores how soil biodiversity contributes to healthy, productive soils and thus benefits society, and the consequences of human activities on soil sustainability. Her global research includes more than 20 years of work in the Antarctic Dry Valleys examining how climate change affects soil biodiversity, ecosystem processes, and ecosystem services. Antarctica’s Wall Valley was named for her in 2005. Wall holds an honorary doctorate from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and is a national associate of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Associa-tion for the Advancement of Sciences and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program. She is the chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative and a member of the U.S. Standing Committee on Life Sciences for the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). She is the recipi-ent of the 2012 SCAR President’s Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research and was hon-ored by the British Ecological Society as the 2011 Tansley Lecturer. Wall is also the 2013 Tyler Laureate for Environmental Achieve-ment. She has served as a member of the 2012 U.S. Antarctic Program Blue Ribbon Panel, a working group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and the U.S. Commission of UNESCO and was co-lead author of the Millennium Develop-ment Goals Committee Chapter of the Mil-lennium Ecosystem Assessment. She has also served as president of the Ecological Society of America, the American Institute of Biologi-cal Sciences, and other societies and was chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents. Her edited books include two on sustaining soil biodiversity and ecosystem services. Wall received her doctorate from the University of Kentucky.

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EDWARD O. WILSON, distinguished biologist, naturalist, theorist, and author, is the leading expert on ants and one of the world’s leading experts on evolution and species diversity. Wilson’s theories — put forth in his books Consilience, Sociobiology, and Pulitzer Prize winners On Human Na-ture and The Ants, among others — have sparked decades of debate about the inter-face between the human psyche and hu-man biology. He is known as the founder of the theory of sociobiology, which pro-poses that human and animal behavior is shaped by evolutionary forces, and its offshoot, evolutionary psychology. He de-veloped the basis of modern biodiversity conservation efforts through his biophilia hypothesis, which proposes that there is a vital, instinctive bond between humans and all other forms of life. Throughout his life, Wilson has spearheaded efforts to pre-serve the world’s biodiversity. He played a central role in establishing the Encyclope-dia of Life, which has the goal of curating a web page for every one of Earth’s species, and he has mobilized the movement to protect the world’s “hot spots,” the realms of highest biodiversity on the planet. The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, named in honor of Wilson, works to fos-ter a knowing stewardship of our world through biodiversity research and educa-tion initiatives that promote and inform worldwide preservation of our biological

heritage. A Birmingham native, Wilson chronicled his childhood sloshing through the woods and creeks of south Alabama in his bestselling 1994 autobiography Natu-ralist. He received his bachelor’s and mas-ter’s degrees in biology from The Univer-sity of Alabama (1949, 1950). He received his doctorate from Harvard University where he is Pelligrino University Research Professor Emeritus and where he taught and conducted research for 45 years. He is a recipient of the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, an honor equal to the Nobel Prize; the U.S. National Medal of Science; and more than 100 international awards including Japan’s International Prize for Biology, the Prix de Institut de Vie — Paris, Italy’s presidential Medal and the Nonino Prize in science and letters, the Cosmos Prize, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the Gold Medal of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the Audubon Medal of the Audubon So-ciety, the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society, Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal International Prize for Science, the Dominican Republic’s high-est award, the Order of the Silver Cross of Christopher Columbus, and Sweden’s highest award given to a noncitizen, Com-mander, First Class, Royal Order of the Polar Star. He is the author of 29 books including his first novel, Ant Hill, the story of a young boy growing up in Mobile, pub-

lished in 2010; The Social Conquest of Life, published in 2012; Why We Are Here, a col-lection of essays and photography of his childhood hometown, Mobile, Alabama; and A Window on Eternity: Gorongosa Na-tional Park, Mozambique, which will be re-leased on the opening day of the Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Symposium at The University of Alabama. In 2011, Wilson led scientific expeditions to the wild pre-serve of Gorongosa National Park in Mo-zambique and the archipelagoes of Vanu-atu and New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific. He has developed a special attach-ment to Gorongosa, where U.S. philan-thropist Gregory C. Carr has joined with the government of Mozambique to direct the park’s recovery after years of civil war that saw its wildlife dwindle dramatically. A Window on Eternity: Gorongosa Nation-al Park, Mozambique tells the remarkable story of how Gorongosa, one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the world, was destroyed, was restored, and continues to evolve.

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“Life in the Treetops: Challenges of a Woman Arbornaut”Meg Lowman, Institute for Biodiversity Science and Sustainability, California

Academy of SciencesWith a great deal of perspiration, and perhaps a lesser amount of inspiration, scientists discovered a new frontier high

above the forest floor in the late 1970s. Subsequently, canopy access has revolutionized our knowledge of biodi-versity, photosynthesis, nutrient cycling, phenology, ecophysiology, herbivory, and ecosystem services — to name just a few. In this talk, I will summarize the first long-term ecological research conducted in the tropical rain forest canopies of Australia that addressed hypotheses on insect-plant interactions using SRT (single rope techniques) and canopy walkways. Innovative new methods that allowed data collection throughout whole-forests revealed two amazing discoveries: 1) that almost half of terrestrial biodiversity resides in the treetops; and 2) that herbivory levels

were at least two-fold (up to four-fold) greater than previously measured by sampling at ground level alone. Canopy ecology continues to serve as a catalyst not only for biodiversity research but also for conservation of forests. As the inter-

face between earth and atmosphere, canopies serve as critical indicators of global climate change and forest health. Innovative methods and challenging questions in canopy ecology also serve as a platform to educate the next generation of ecologists and to inspire conservation through drivers such as ecosystem services, ecotourism, policies like REDD, and sustainable products.

In Ethiopia, my research on forest canopy biodiversity led to a major education initiative training local priests about ecosystem services provided by their forests. In this sense, forest canopy research serves as a “hook” to inspire kids, families, religious leaders, and policy-makers to achieve a higher level of environmental literacy.

“Experimental Studies of Biodiversity inNature, Where Ecology Meets Evolution”Jonathan B. Losos, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityBiological diversity is the result of the interface of ecology and evolution, where the ecological factors that affect a species translate into issues of natural selection, extinction, and speciation. In the 1970s and 1980s, experimental approaches revolutionized the science of ecol-ogy, and as in so many other areas, Edward O. Wilson was at the forefront with his studies of island biogeography. At about the same time, evolutionary biologists began to truly appreciate that evolutionary change in natural populations can occur very rapidly, quickly enough to be seen in a human lifetime, even during a typical grant cycle. This discovery meant not only that evolution can be studied in real time, as it happens, but also that it is possible to conduct experiments on evolution in nature, something that previously had seemed impos-sible. Moreover, the rapid pace of evolutionary change means that ecological phenomena often cannot be understood without including an evolutionary component, what is now referred to as eco-evolutionary dynamics. This synthesis has important implications not only for our understanding of ecology and evolution, but also for approaches dealing with global change, invasive species, and many other issues.

“Evolutionary Innovations in Extreme Environments:Hermaphroditic Fish Adapted to Life on Land”Ryan L. Earley, Biological Sciences, The University of AlabamaAs will be demonstrated throughout this symposium, natural selection can drive unique phenotypic adaptations that allow organisms to survive and reproduce in a diverse array of habitats. Mangrove rivulus fish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) exist in upland mangroves where physical and biotic conditions vary spatially and temporally both within and among locales. Salinity, temperature, water depth, and dissolved oxygen in these habitats flirt with the physiological tolerance limits of most species, but mangrove rivulus thrive under such conditions. My laboratory has investigated behavioral, physiological, and life history traits in a growing number of isolated populations and in many distinct isogenic lineages to better understand how this species deals with such harsh environs. We summarize our most recent work demonstrating exceptional behavioral adaptations to living in tidal environments as well as dramatic examples of phenotypic plasticity – the ability of a single genotype to adopt many different phenotypes depending on conditions experienced during development. In this species, essentially every aspect of the phenotype, from aggression levels and body shape to sex, responds to early life environments, which may be the key to surviv-ing in notoriously tumultuous mangrove ecosystems.

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16-17_Program_Abstracts 1-7.indd 2 4/16/2014 9:34:54 AM

“Primates and Snakes, an 80 Million Year Dialog?”Harry W. Greene, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,Cornell University

In this lecture I will describe evidence and uncertainties in an emerging theory that 1) as first constricting predators and, much later, venomous adversaries, snakes have significantly influenced the origin and subse-

quent radiaton of primates, especially in terms of the neurobiology of vision and fear; 2) the origin of front-fanged venom injection radically changed the nature of snake encounters with their own predators, such that

visually- and acoustically-oriented, cognitively sophisticated adversaries promoted the evolution of ser-pentine defensive displays and mimicry; and 3) as visual, acoustic, cognitive, and weapon-wielding adversaries, primates have substantially affected snake evolution, including perhaps favoring origin of

the only long-distance weaponry among all serpents. These long-term, bidirectional evolutionary relationships both challenge and potentially inspire efforts to appreciate and conserve snakes.

“The Coastal Plain of the Southeastern United States: An Overlooked and Underappreciated Biodiversity Hotspot” D. Bruce Means, Biological Science, Florida State UniversityWho among us has heard place names such as the Tunica Hills, Big Thicket, Crowley’s Ridge, Alabama Red Hills, Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines, Okefenokee Swamp, The Everglades, Ocala Island, and Great Dismal Swamp? Or, have you heard of special ecosystems such as pocosins, cypress domes, hatrack swamps, pitcher plant bogs, sandhill scrub, flatwoods, steephead ravines, and hammocks? How many of us are familiar with Amerindian names of rivers such as Mississippi, Conecuh, Choctawhatchee, Apalachicola, Ochlockonee, Wakulla, Suwannee, Alapaha, Ocmulgee, Altamaha, Ogeechee, Coosawatchie, Salkahatchie, Ashepoo, or Neuse? All of these words apply to parts of, or smaller places in, one big place. It is a place so large that it stretches more than 2,000 miles from the border of Mexico at its southwest end to Long Island in the northeast and encom-passes all or almost all of the states of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Delaware—about half of Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, South Caro-lina, North Carolina, and Maryland—and parts of Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. This big place is called the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States. Most American know that the Appalachians, Great Plains, and Sonoran Desert are large natural areas, but few are aware that the southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain—a large part of eastern North America—is geologically and biologically just as distinctive. In fact, it deserves to be ranked among the planet’s most important biodiversity hotspots.

“Suture Zones and Cryptic Biodiversity in Alabama”Leslie J. Rissler, Biological Sciences, The University of AlabamaAlabama is one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in North America, especially because it is the largest suture zone hotspot for amphibians. Suture zones are regions where sister species and phylogeographic lineages come into contact. As such they represent areas that have either generated biodiversity through repeated speciation across multiple groups or are areas where secondary contact has occurred for multiple species. The richness of Alabama can be partly attributed to the diversity of geological substrata, multiple riverways, and four freshwater ecoregions in an area that was relatively unaffected by Pleistocene glaciations. These conditions are likely to have enhanced speciation through both vicariance and selective agents. Even within this major suture zone, unique regions exist that harbor cryptic biodiversity. For example, the Red Hills region is home to Phaeognathus hubrichti (Red Hills Salamander). This federally threatened species is associated with specific geological formations found only in Alabama. Genetic analyses show limited gene flow and evidence for recent bottlenecks in the majority of subpopulations. This work is important when prioritizing land areas for conservation, since more than 80 percent of the species’ original habitat has been destroyed by sil-vicultural and agricultural practices. Another endemic species of conservation interest is Sternotherus depressus (Flattened Musk Turtle). Population sampling of historic sites indicates that the species’ range has dramatically narrowed. Ongoing genetic data suggest introgression between S. depressus and the more widely distributed S. minor. Combining ecological and genetic analyses of the health of these species is important if we are to effectively manage the natural heritage of Alabama.

“The State of Global Biodiversity”Edward O. Wilson, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityThe nature and amount of global biodiversity will be addressed, with emphasis on the taxonomic level of species. Biologists know and have given scientific names to two million species, but the estimated number, known and unknown, is at least several times that. A large fraction of species are endangered to some degree; the estimated extinction rate is 100–1,000 times the prehuman base level. Earth remains a little-known planet; the survival of the rest of life is vital to our own.


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16-17_Program_Abstracts 1-7.indd 3 4/16/2014 9:34:56 AM

“Penguins as Marine Sentinels”P. Dee Boersma, Biology, University of WashingtonBiodiversity on planet Earth is in peril. For example, more than one half of the 17 species of penguins are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list. Edward O. Wilson showed us that “small things can run the world.” He informed us that behavior has deep evolutionary roots, and sociobiology provided a synthetic understanding of why animals and humans act as they do. Penguins, as sentinels of the

southern oceans, can help humans understand how the planet is responding to global climate change. Habitat alteration caused by climate change is a new source of mortality for penguins. Natural his-tory, long-term studies, and communication of what we learn can alter the fate of penguins, other species, and humans. These are the tools humans must use to mitigate extinctions. Penguins show us how regional changes in the environment are impacting their survival. Increases in precipitation, reductions in sea ice, and increased frequency and severity of El Niño can cause reproductive failure

in penguins. The population of Galápagos penguins, the rarest species of penguin in the world, is half of what it was in the early 1970s due to introduced predators and habitat alteration caused by climate change. The largest breeding colony of Magellanic penguins, at Punta Tombo, Argentina, in Patagonia, has declined by roughly 50

percent since the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, petroleum pollution was a major source of Magellanic penguin mortality, but tanker lanes were moved, and the dumping of ballast water and the oiling of penguins is now rare offshore

Patagonia. A 100 kilometer marine protected area at Punta Tombo, Argentina, could enhance availability of small fishes and thereby reduce starvation of penguin chicks and help to rebuild the Magellanic penguin’s population. As marine sentinels for southern oceans, penguins are warning us that humans must alter their behavior. Long-term studies demonstrate that penguins face new chal-lenges. If humans are to mitigate their impact on wildlife, we must use science to inform decisions. Only people can alter the course of our biodiversity crisis and improve the fate of penguins.

“Hidden Worlds: Biodiversity of Marine Microbes”E. Virginia Armbrust, School of Oceanography, University of WashingtonEvery drop of seawater contains hundreds of fantastically diverse groups of microbes that together control key biogeochemical pro-cesses in the ocean. Marine microbes are a large part of the “unseen majority” that determine the habitability of our planet. The chal-lenge is to scale from this world of individual cells to ecosystem function and ultimately to ocean basin processes. Our work begins with microscopic marine diatoms because they are responsible for about one-fifth of the photosynthesis that occurs on Earth each year, they form the base of highly productive marine food webs, and they help regulate past and current atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Diatoms evolved in a dilute environment where essential metabolites are commonly shared across kingdoms, which means that they are never free from the influences of other microbes and must therefore be studied as part of complicated network of inter-acting organisms. We developed instrumentation to map the abundance, type and size of different groups of microbes from aboard ships as they steam across tens of thousands of kilometers of the North Pacific Ocean, providing new evidence for microbial hotspots in the sea. We use genomic approaches in both laboratory experiments and in open ocean field studies to document how interactions with the environment and between microbes drive specific adaptations. Our ultimate goal is to understand how microbial communi-ties will respond to and will help shape future ocean conditions.

“Plant Biodiversity in the Tree of Life”Juan M. Lopez-Bautista, Biological Sciences, The University of Alabama

The red algae, or Rhodophyta, and the green algae, or Chlorophyta, are common groups of uni- and multi-cellular aquatic photosynthetic organisms. They exhibit a broad range of morphologies and a great diversity

of life cycles. Both groups represent early divergent lineages in the eukaryotic Tree of Life. Their plas-tids are also represented across the Tree of Life via secondary endosymbiosis. Two groups of researchers with expertise in taxonomy, systematics, and phylogenomics have been assembled with the goal to

clarify the evolution of red (REDToL) and green (GRAToL) algae and their place in the Tree of Life. To accomplish the goals of REDToL and GRAToL, we are: 1) reconstructing a robust phy-logeny of almost 1,000 algal species using concatenated dataset of nuclear, plastid, and mitochon-drial encoded gene markers, 2) sequencing plastid genomes and generating transcriptome databases for key taxa that represent the phylogenetic (i.e., class- and order-level) breadth of the green and red algae, and 3) making freely available red and green algal multi-gene and genome data via release to GenBank and project-specific websites. In this talk, I will introduce REDToL and GRAToL and highlight

current research results and outreach activities.

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18-19_Program_Abstracts.indd 2 4/16/2014 9:35:08 AM

Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Symposium

“After Biodiversity: Valuing Nature for the 20th Century”Sahotra Sarkar, Philosophy, Integrative Biology, University of Texas at AustinNatural resource conservation has an episodic history of thousands of years; it also has a semicontinuous history going back to the 19th century when massive natural resource exploitation led to concerted efforts to protect both wildlife and wilderness. Wildlife protection was extended to the protection of species at risk of extinction in the late 20th century. However, the protection of biodiversity as such is of recent vintage and can be traced back only to the 1980s. The definition of biodi-versity remained contested. How the term should be defined must take into account that “biodiversity” was explicitly introduced with the goal of conservation in mind and that it is an intrinsically normative concept. The early use of “biodiversity” did not provide it with a measure that can be operationally used for conservation. Since the 1980s operationalization resorted to the use of biodiversity “surrogates.” However, this requires attention to the normativity of biodiversity: the identification of its “constituents” for which surrogates can be established. It turns out that biodiversity is one of a potentially heterogeneous set of natural values which may sometimes be in conflict. In many contexts, multicriteria decision analysis can be used to incorporate all relevant values into environmental decisions. Viewing biodiversity in this way implies that, contrary to contemporary fashion, there is no reason to try to reduce biodiversity conservation to the achievement of environmental sustainability. Biodiversity conservation must be accompanied by many other goals of “nature protection” including that of charismatic and other culturally important taxa.

“Genomes, Feathers, and Flight:Biodiversity and Evolution Through the Lens of Genomics”Scott V. Edwards, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityFor the first time in the history of evolutionary biology, naturalists and comparative biologists have access to the genome – the complete catalog of genes and regulatory structures – of an increasing number of species. At the same time, through online databases and specimen catalogs, scientists are gaining increasing access to a variety of ecological, morphological, and behavioral traits of large numbers of species across the Tree of Life. The result is an unprecedented opportunity to determine the genomic origins of key adaptations and innovations and their links with environmen-tal and geological change. Using examples from recent discoveries, including our ongoing work on genome evolution in birds, I illustrate how genomic information can be used to better understand, and erect new hypotheses for, the genomic basis of key innovations, such as feathers and flight. The comparative genomics framework, as well as other approaches for correlating genomic and phenotypic evolution across the Tree of Life, offer compelling candidates for genomic innovation underlying adaptation, and provide a 21st century perspective on the origins of biodiversity. Although traditionally less visible to the naturalist than the diversification of species, the diversification of genes and their regulatory elements are becoming increasingly easy to document on a broad scale, and they provide an additional layer of complexity to our understanding of biodiversity.

“What is Biodiversity?”Richard A. Richards, Philosophy, The University of AlabamaThere are two standard views about biodiversity. First, it encompasses all kinds of diversity at all levels of life’s organization. Second, biodiversity has value and should therefore be conserved across its full range. These views together present some challenges that require reconsideration of how we conceive biodiversity. It is not clear, for instance, that a single descriptive concept of biodiversity will be adequate. Alternatives include a value-laden normativism and several kinds of pluralism.

“How Humans and Ants Conquered the World”Edward O. Wilson, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Organismic andEvolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityThe fundamental biological adaptations of social behavior that distinguish human beings and the advanced social insects (ants, bees, wasps, termites) have arisen only 20 known times in the history of life. All passed through a similar pre-adaptation that set the stage for the attainment of eusociality, the most advanced biological stage conceivable in Earth’s biosphere. This talk will examine the causes and consequences of the event.

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18-19_Program_Abstracts.indd 3 4/16/2014 9:35:08 AM

4/14 Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Symposium program (sample)

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Transcript of 4/14 Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Symposium program (sample)