Plenary Speakers
Anna Qvarnström, University of Uppsala, Sweden
Anna Qvarnström holds a position as an associate professor at the Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Uppsala. She is largely interested in the great diversity of species. Her research aims at finding out more about how new species are formed (i.e. speciation) and to revealing how new species are sheltered from merging through interbreeding or from driving each other to extinction through competition. For this she is using different approaches, including studying hybrid zones and geographic variation among populations as well as performing artificial selection experiments.
Duur Aanen, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Duur Aanen is an assistant professor at the Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University. His main interest is the levels of selection in evolution. Which factors promote cooperation and prevent competition among lower-level units, facilitating higher levels of biological organization? He uses filamentous fungi as experimental model organisms to address this question. His current research focuses on conflicts between selection at different levels (e.g. termite-fungus mutualism – fungal mycelia – nuclei within mycelia), the evolution of allorecognition and sexual selection.
Julie Etterson, University of Minnesota Duluth, USA
Julie Etterson works as an associate professor at the Department of Biology, University of Minnesota Duluth. The goal of her research is to understand genetic and ecological factors that influence the rate of adaptive evolution in natural plant populations. Her lab uses tools of ecological genetics to understand factors that influence the persistence of native plant populations in response to anthropogenic changes in the environment including climate change, competition with invasive species, inbreeding due to small population size, introduction of nonnative genotypes during habitat restoration, and increased intensity of deer herbivory. She aims to examine how natural plant populations change phenotypically and genetically in response to these agents of selection.
Mike Siva-Jothy, University of Sheffield, UK
Mike Siva-Jothy is professor of entomology at the Department of Animal and Plant Science, University of Sheffield. His research interests are focused on sexual conflict, ecological immunology and interactions between reproduction and immunity. These interests are pursued using insects as models and key study organisms are the damselfly Calopteryx xanthostoma, the flour beetle, Tenebrio molitor, and the bedbug Cimex lectularius.
Michael Ruse, Florida State University, USA
Michael Ruse holds a Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professorship at the Department of Philosophy and is the director of the interdisciplinary program History and Philosophy of Science at the Florida State University. His research interests cover Philosophy of Biology (especially Darwinism), Ethics, the History and Philosophy of Science. He has authored numerous books in this area, and has edited many others. He founded the journal Biology and Philosophy, and is the editor of the Cambridge University Series in the Philosophy of Biology. He lectures globally on evolutionary issues and is a renowned debater of Creationists.
Johannes Krause, University of Tuebingen, Germany
Johannes Krause is a Junior Professor at the Center of Science-based Archaeology, University Tuebingen. His research interests cover the broad range of palaeogenetics. He investigates methods to extract and analyse ancient DNA from various species including mammoths, cave bears, primates. His work also contributed to decode the whole genome of Neanderthals. His main research focus lies on the genomic comparisons of Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans to clarify their evolutionary relationship.
Presidential address:
Brian Charlesworth, University of Edinburgh, UK
Brian Charlesworth is a Senior Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh. His general area of research is in evolutionary genetics. His group carries out both theoretical and experimental research, using theoretical ideas to motivate the experiments, and experimental data as stimulant for the development of theory. His recent research has focussed on three main areas: molecular evolution and variation, the evolution of genetic and sexual systems, and the quantitative genetics of life-history traits. He is particularly interested in the consequences of genetic recombination for molecular variation and evolution.
John Maynard Smith Prize Lecture:
Rowan Barrett, Harvard University, US
Rowan Barrett is a Howard Alper and FQEB fellow at the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University. His work is motivated by a desire to understand the genetic basis of adaptation to changing environments. His research bridges theoretical and empirical approaches in population genetics, evolutionary ecology, and molecular biology to ask questions about the ecological mechanisms that influence evolutionary processes, and vice versa. He has pursued this research program with a variety of key study systems, including stickleback fish, deer mice, and microbes.
