Sam's Practice talk

Notes from:

Sam Price’s Practice Job Talk for Hull, UK, next week, in Wainwright lab:

  • Diversification of mammals predated KT event(Bininda-Emonds et. al. 2007) (also considerably later, but not right after)
  • Ecological shift in wrasses to parrotfishes(Price et. al. 2010). No evidence of elevate rates of evolution. But, scraping parrotfishes do show difference (starting from base of Hipposcarus-Scarus common ancestor).
  • Multiple transitions to/from reef living. 2x faster on coral reefs!  (Price et. al. 2011)
  • In prep: Omnivores trophic strategy (transitions are always via omnivore).  Carnivore->omnivore->herbivore stronger pathway. Herbivores diversify fast, Omnivores slowest, a transition group.(Price & Hopkins in prep)

my Qs * Mass – how do you weight it (by species number)? presumably in log. * Nice stories, all are ecological shifts. Is there a trend/direction? More ambitious/clearer? What’s the general pattern and story

Approach: Database collection. Trait databases. Phylogeny building, time calibration. Comparative methods.

  • Plan: Continue with approach, apply to conservation (>>how??) & teaching students through applied questions.

Future Directions

  • Project 1: Increase breath of taxa. Use of fossils. Get real fancy with fossil traits: 3D GIS approach on fossils
  • Project 2: Spatial & Climate change. wow. application?
  • Project 3: Host shifting on parasites – great data is available. Phylo distance propto shifting rate? breakdown by range overlap, parasite type, transmission, etc

Other group comments

Peter: Applied Evolution really strong pitch: under-utilized and very powerful.

Peter: Sell interesting bio questions and real expertise Matt on reef paper: also is applied: what enviro has less extinction

References