Lab-meeting on August 28 2011: Space, time and evolution

It is time for a new semester of intellectually challenging and exciting lab-meetings in order to sharpen our brains. The first one this semester deals with a "new" idéa which turns out to not to be that new at all, although it is the first time it has been explicitly developed. It is a paper by Australian herpetologist Richard Shine and co-workers in the journal PNAS, entitled: "An evolutionary process that assembles phenotypes through space rather than through time". The paper is published through the "Open Access"-option and can be easily be downloaded here.

Time and place as usual: "Argumentet" on Wednesday, August 31 2011 (unless that room is occupied). Fika volunteers are welcome. Below you can find the abstract.

An evolutionary process that assembles phenotypes through space rather than through time

1. Richard Shine^a,¹,
2. Gregory P. Brown^a, and
3. Benjamin L. Phillips^b

+ Author Affiliations

1. ^aSchool of Biological Sciences A08, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; and
2. ^bSchool of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia

Abstract

In classical evolutionary theory, traits evolve because they facilitate organismal survival and/or reproduction. We discuss a different type of evolutionary mechanism that relies upon differential dispersal. Traits that enhance rates of dispersal inevitably accumulate at expanding range edges, and assortative mating between fast-dispersing individuals at the invasion front results in an evolutionary increase in dispersal rates in successive generations. This cumulative process (which we dub “spatial sorting”) generates novel phenotypes that are adept at rapid dispersal, irrespective of how the underlying genes affect an organism's survival or its reproductive success. Although the concept is not original with us, its revolutionary implications for evolutionary theory have been overlooked. A range of biological phenomena (e.g., acceleration of invasion fronts, insular flightlessness, preadaptation) may have evolved via spatial sorting as well as (or rather than) by natural selection, and this evolutionary mechanism warrants further study.

• colonization
• evolution
• spatial disequilibrium
• nonadaptive evolution

ESEB-meeting in Tuebingen (Germany) 20-25 August 2011

The European Evolutionary Biology meeting ("ESEB") is quickly approaching, and several current and past members of our laboratory will participate, either with posters or with talks. The scientific programme looks really exciting and can be found here.  I will try to publish one or several blog posts with my impressions from the conference, and I would encourage all of you who read this and have permission to publish on the blog to also do so, to share our experiences and impressions with others.

I will give a talk myself as invited speaker in the session "Speciation by natural versus sexual selection" on Wednesday August 24. PhD-student Anna Runemark from our lab was also offered the opportunity to give a talk about her work on inbreeding and purging of the genetic load in island populations of lizards, and it will take place the same day as mine.

Also, our incoming postdoc from Japan, Dr. Yuma Takahashi, will give a talk about frequency-dependent evolutionary dynamics of genetic polymorphisms in Ischnura senegalensis on Sunday August 21 at 11.00 in the "Life-history"-session. Do not miss it! Apart from these three talks, there will also be poster contributions from former lab-member Jessica Abbott and current postdocs Kristina Karlsson Green, Machteld Verzijden, Maren Wellenreuther and Sophia Engel, as well as several other contributions from the Department of Biology in Lund, of course.

I am very much looking forward to this meeting, and I hope to be able to talk to most of you, perhaps even gather the whole crowd of current, former and incoming lab-members and go for a dinner together. Perhaps Tuesday evening (August 23)? Let's try to get in touch during the meeting, even though it will be difficult in the large crowd of evolutionary biologists.