On crypsis in South African leafhoppers on May 29 (2013)

Posted by Erik Svensson

Apart from our regular lab-meeting now on Tuesday (May 28), I would also like to announce a thesis-defence (BcSci; 30 points) by one of our students: Johanna Eklund. Her presentation will take place on Wednesday May 29 at 15.00 in "Argumentet". 

Opponent will be Associate Professor Marie Dacke from "The Vision group". The title of Johannas project is:

"Crypsis through the eyes of a predator"

Johanna has been studying camouflage in leafhoppers (Homoptera) in South Africa at Stellenbosch University, as part of my research exchange grant funded by SIDA/VR. This should be very interesting, whether you are interested in predator-mediated selection, colour evolution and ecology, visual ecology or all of these fascinating topics.

Everybody should be most welcome!

Travel trip report and slide show from South Africa followed by "Evolutionary Biology for the 21th century"

Navy dropwing (Trithemis furva). Photo: Erik Svensson

Posted by Erik Svensson

During the lab-meeting next week (Tuesday April 2), I will show some nature pictures from our recent research and field work trip to eastern South Africa (from the provinces of KwaZulu Natal, Mupalanga and Limpopo) that I recently did with Anna Nordén, John Waller and Johannis Danielsen. 



After that, we will discuss a recent essay in PLoS Biology, entitled "Evolutionary Biology for the 21th Century", authored by Losos et al. This paper is published "Open Acess", and can be accessed here.

This thought-provoking essay should be an must-read for anyone interested in the future of the general research field of evolutionary biology. The paper has already sparked some interest in the bloggosphere, such as here and here. Of particular interest is their coining of a new term - "Biodiversity informatics", and what it might entail.

The more general questions, I think, are these: are the authors likely to be correct in their predictions about the future of our field, and if not, what have they missed? And where are we in this picture in our research group in relation to the rest of the evolutionary biology research community? How could we contribute?

Time: Tuesday April 2, 10.30
Place: "Argumentet", 2nd floor (Ecology Building)

Final reminder to Anna and John: could you bring fika? Also, send some of your best pictures to me well before Tuesday, so I can put them together in to our slide show.

Happy New Year!

I hereby wish all my co-workers (students, PhD-students, postdocs and colleagues) a Happy New Year 2011! I certainly hope that the new year will be as succesful as the previous was, for many of us. Apart from several good publications in excellent journals (BMC Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, J. Evol. Biol., TREE to mention only a few) I would also like to highlight some other great highlights (to me personally):

1. Kristina Karlsson succesfully defended her PhD in November and have already published most of her thesis-papers. Well done!

2. Fabrice Eroukhmanoff got a postdoctoral 2-year grant from The Swedish Research Council (VR) to go to Norway (Oslo University) and work with Glenn-Pether Saethre and Thomas F. Hansen.

3. Machteld Verzijden found out, just before Christmas, that she will stay in our lab for 2-3 more years, due a postdoctoral scholarship from the Wenner-Gren Foundations.

4. Former postdoc Shawn Kuchta got a faculty position at Ohio University (Athens, USA), and started up his new lab from the beginning of September 2010. Sophia Engel visited him during November, and I will myself go there for a visit in April 2011.

Needless to say: I am proud to work with such a group of excellent and dedicated scientists as you guys! Although academic life is stressful and we compete (like all other groups) for grants and to get our papers published in good journals, I think we are doing remarkably well, as a lab and as a group. I think this is because we regularly meet and discuss science - in a friendly and cooperative atmosphere. This is the key to sucess - much more than large research grants. I hope we can continue along this succesful path for many years to come.

As for myself, I will now leave for South Africa (well, tomorrow!), and will be back in the last week of January. Until then; enjoy this picture of a Greater Collared Sunbird, photographed in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa in April this year. My overly ambitious daughter My (who is soon a professional blogger and expert in HTML-programming, by the way), has started up a new photo blog, where she wants us both to upload our photos during the trip to South Africa. You can find it here.

I am not sure I will allocate that much time as my daughter expects me to, as I want to stay away from the internet for a while, when enjoying field work, good wine, birds and wildlife. But keep following this other blog, perhaps I will change my mind :).

Seminar about conservation biology in South Africa on September 15

 

This coming Wednesday (15 September), PhD-student John Simaika from Stellenbosch University in South Africa will give a presentation about conservation biology entitled:

"Advances in monitoring and prioritizing riverine habitats for conservation using biotic indices with special emphasis on South Africa."

John is a PhD-student of Professor Mike Samways, who is head of the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology in Stellenbosch. Samways and his students have especially studied the conservation biology of rare, endemic and threatened odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) and developed various habitat restoration strategies to increase the population sizes of some rare species.

Prof. Samways and I have recently initiated a research collaboration and an exchange programme between Lund and Stellenbosch Universities, that was launched earlier this year and will run for the coming three years. John is here for a short visit as part of this programme. I will announce this seminar also to people outside our lab-group. Time and place as usual:

"Darwin" on September 15, 10.15.

Please spread the word about this talk to all other interested students and researchers in the Ecology Building!