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Two Leverhulme funded PhD Studentships in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath

Applications are invited for a studentship on Fossils and the Tree of Life.

• Can we infer the true Tree of Life without fossils?
• Are fossil characters phylogenetically biased, and if so, does it matter?
• Is the phylogeny of some groups really much more intractable than others?
• Are ghost ranges much more common in some groups, and if so, why?

Closing Date: 18 May 2009
Further details

Applications are invited for a studentship on Macroevolutionary Trends.

• Is the early evolution of maximal disparity of form a rule?
• Do clades go extinct because better-adapted ones displace them?
• Is increasing complexity in animal groups inevitable?
• Are reductions in complexity misleading phylogenetic analyses?

Closing Date: 18 May 2009
Further details

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Plant conservation for the next decade: a celebration of Kew's 250th anniversary

October 12th-16th, 2009

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

www.kew.org/science/anniversary-conference/

Call for Papers

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is hosting a celebratory scientific conference from October 12th-16th 2009, to mark the occasion of its 250th Anniversary. The programme will include three days of scientific sessions in the Jodrell laboratory, showcasing Kew's conservation research and inviting leading international research scientists to present papers in six sessions entitled:

• Plant conservation: policies and politics
• Plant conservation: management and restoration
• Plant conservation and human cultures
• Plant conservation and agriculture
• Frontiers of plant conservation technology
• Plant conservation: what can we afford to lose?

Keynote speakers include Dr Peter Raven, Dr Judy West, Professor Hongwen Huang, Professor Michael E Kane, Dr Saw Leng Guan, Professor Richard Hobbs, Ms Sara Oldfield, the current Director of Kew Professor Stephen Hopper and previous Directors Professor Sir Peter Crane and Professor Sir Ghillean Prance.

We now invite interested parties to submit abstracts for posters and oral presentations, to be considered for inclusion in this exciting conference. Participating authors are also invited to contribute to a special issue of Kew Bulletin, subject to standard scientific review.

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words, excluding the title, and the deadline for abstract submission is April 9th, 2009. Details of online abstract submission and registration, and general information about the conference, can be found at:

www.kew.org/science/anniversary-conference/

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The Second Annual Biodiversity Policy Lecture in Association with the Systematics Association

16 April 2009, 6:00pm at the Linnean Society

Biodiversity in a Changing World

Professor John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office for Science

Prof John Beddington will deliver a talk on biodiversity in a changing world, which will include the interrelated issues of climate change, food, water and energy security. He will also discuss the importance of understanding biodiversity further, which amongst other things will help the UK Government in its efforts to meet its national and international biodiversity policy targets.

Registration for this event is essential, please contact Kate Longhurst to book a place:

Tea will be served in the Library from 5.30pm and the lecture will be followed by a wine reception.

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NICHE EVOLUTION

A unifying concept for systematics, ecology, palaeontology and conservation biology

3-4 July, 2009. Excursion on 5 July.

Zurich, Switzerland

www.systbot.uzh.ch/niche

MOTIVATION
Evolution of ecological niches, in their various guises, has become a central theme in several research fields of biology. We argue that niches, how they evolve, and the consequences of their evolution, affect a wide range of disciplines in organismal and evolutionary biology, and as such could be seen as a unifying thread.

In this meeting we will explore the interdisciplinary impact of evolving niches, and so bring together systematists, invasion biologists, biodiversity specialists, ecologists, and palaeontologists. We want to explore the commonality of evolving niches. The focus is more on concepts than methods (although, of course, the methods used will impact massively on the concepts). The emphasis is more on how to understand the evolution of a niche, rather than the definition of the niche. There will be some talks on the basics of niches to set the stage for the topics of niche evolution. The idea is to bring people together working in this field and to provide a forum to discuss developments, prospects and needs with various users and specialists. Therefore, the program is structured to provide ample time for discussions between and after the sessions.

PLACE
The meeting will take place at the Institute of Systematic Botany of the University of Zurich, situated in the botanical garden of the University of Zurich, within easy reach of public transport.

TALKS
Only invited talks will be given, and contributions as posters are welcome. There will be an evening poster session.

Invited speakers include William Bond, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Alastair Culham, Catherine Graham, Antoine Guisan, Sabine Jakob, Jennifer Lau, Peter Linder, Signe Normand, Peter Pearman, Townsend Peterson, Bob Ricklefs, Nicolas Salamin, Walter Salzburger, Harald Schneider, Jonathan Silvertown, Wilfried Thuillier and Niklaus Zimmermann.

POST-CONFERENCE ONE-DAY EXCURSION
There will be an excursion for Sunday, 5 July, into the Alps. We will cross the Susten Pass (2'250 m). On Susten Pass we will visit the Steingletscher glacier, which has shown a dramatic reduction in the past decades, thus exposing much new habitat. We will be able to see the plant successions into these newly exposed habitats. This shows very dramatically the effect of climate change, and the potential new habitats exposed.

ORGANISERS
Peter Linder, Alexandre Antonelli, Rafael Wüest (Systematic Botany, University of Zurich), Niklaus Zimmermann and Peter Pearman (Institute of Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, WSL, Zurich), Harald Schneider (Natural History Museum, London), Frank Blattner (IPK Gatersleben) and Nicolas Salamin (Computational Phylogenetics, University of Lausanne)

REGISTRATION IS OPEN, at www.systbot.uzh.ch/niche

Dr Alexandre Antonelli
Institute of Systematic Botany
Zollikerstrasse 107
CH 8008 Zürich
Switzerland
Ph: +41 (0)44 634 8416
Fax: +41 (0)44 634 8403

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House of Lords Science and Technology Committee

The Government provided its Response to the Systematics and Taxonomy: Follow-up report on 6 November 2008. Visit the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee pages for additional details.

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EVOLUTION 150

WORKSHOP on "Evolutionary Biology: Evolution 150", celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's The Origin of the Species, Cuenca, Spain 15th - 19th March 2009

The British Council in Spain in collaboration with the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) is organising a series of scientific workshops to provide opportunities for researchers from the UK and Spain to meet face-to-face for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and information on priority topics and to explore future areas of research and collaboration. The next workshop in this series, entitled Evolution 150, will cover the broad field of evolutionary biology and marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species".

For further details and an application form contact Rafael Zardoya or Peter Holland

Early to mid career researchers wishing to participate should send a completed application form and CV to before December 15, 2008.

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Beyond Cladistics: A Festschrift for Chris Humphries

1st to 3rd of October 2008, at the Linnean Society

As an approach to the discovery of phylogenetic relationships among organisms, cladistics took the systematics community by storm. According to David Hull, in his 1988 account of its history, cladistics was winning out everywhere; according to Colin Patterson, cladistics "began in the late 1960s, accelerated in the 1970s, and was virtually complete by the eighties"; in contrast, Gareth Nelson suggested that cladistics is suffering from "Arrested Development". This symposium, entitled Beyond Cladistics, in honour of botanist Chris Humphries, will address some general issues relating to cladistics: its past, its present and its future - if, indeed, there is anything beyond cladistics itself.

Additional Information

• Programme
• Registration Form

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IV International Rubiaceae (Gentianales) Conference

October 19-24, 2008. Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.

The "Instituto de Biologia, UNAM" and the "Instituto de Ecologia, A.C." are pleased to announce that the fourth Rubiaceae Conference will be held in the Clavijero Botanical Garden of the Institute of Ecology in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. This meeting will include papers and posters on the taxonomy, phylogeny and classification, morphology and anatomy, floristics, ecology and biogeography within Rubiaceae or other Gentianales. We particularly encourage students to submit the results of their work.

Deadline for abstracts: July 31, 2008.
Please visit www.ibiologia.unam.mx/rubiaceas/index.htm
For further questions, contact

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The First Systematics Association-Linnean Society Annual Lecture on Biodiversity Policy

10 April 2008 at the Linnean Society

Biodiversity in a changing world - building a science base to support policy

Prof. Georgina Mace, Imperial College (Silwood Park)

New pressures on biodiversity from climate change and land-use change continue to deplete natural species and communities, and lead to increased risks to people and the economy from environmental damage and loss of natural resources. Yet, despite widespread acceptance of this problem, we still rely on a biodiversity information base that is often patchy, opportunistic and lacks a coherent focus. In this talk I will discuss some ideas and current initiatives that could build on the scientific and research strengths in UK institutions, especially the universities, research institutes and museums, and provide a stronger framework for biodiversity science to support significant policy issues at national and international levels.

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10th Symposium of the International Organization of Plant Biosystematists

2 - 4 July 2008

Evolution of Plants in Mountainous and Alpine Habitat
Vysoké Tatry Mts., Štrbské Pleso, Slovak Republic

You are cordially invited to Slovakia to Vysoke Tatry Mts., July 2008, to the next international IOPB symposium.
visit www.guarant.cz/iopb2008/ for further details

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Assessing scientific opinion on character quality in phylogeny reconstruction

Dear Colleague,
My name is Josephine Hill and I am a Master's student in Biosystematics at The Natural History Museum. I am inviting you participate in my first research project exploring character quality in phylogeny reconstruction.

Recently, there has been much debate as to whether molecular, morphological and even behavioural information differ in quality. For example, does one type of character contain more 'homoplasy' or convergence than another type of character? As part of my first project I wish to survey the opinion of scientists from different fields of research as to whether molecular, morphological and behavioural information differ in quality. I hope the results will give me a greater understanding of any association between area of interest and the reasoning behind personal preference.

The survey date has now passed.

I thank you in advance and please contact me if you have any further queries regarding this study.
Yours sincerely
Josephine
Email:

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Second round of CoSyst funding

The second round of CoSyst awards were made in March. A total of £74,445 was allocated.

View successful awards

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SA response to House of Lords

February 2008: Response to the House of Lords Science & Technology Committee call for evidence: Systematics and taxonomy. Read submission

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SYNTHESYS

The closing date for proposals has passed.

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Last updated: 16 March 2009
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