BIOL 801: Current EEB Research

The course introduces students to research being conducted by members of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. Each week we will be joined by a guest faculty member from EEB. We will discuss one classic paper in their field, and one recent paper that either comes from their lab or is very closely related to their research focus.

Meeting: Wednesday 3:00-5:00 in 3012 Haworth

Instructors (office hours by appointment):

Joy Ward joyward@ku.edu 864-5229 8026 Haworth
Mark Holder mtholder@ku.edu 864-5789 6031 Haworth

The syllabus is available here: CurrentEEBResearchSyllabus.pdf

Date Guest Topic/Links
Jan. 18 Maria Orive and Town Peterson Course overview, and responsible research training:
Gunsalus, C.K., 1998. How to blow the whistle and still have a career afterwards. Science and Engineering Ethics , 4(1) , p.51-64. Available at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/h8728173580124p0

Couzin, J., 2006. Scientific misconduct. Truth and consequences. Science , 313(5791) , p.1222-1226. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.313.5791.1222
Jan. 25 Paulyn Cartwright and Jenny Gleason Responsible Research Training:
From the Chronicle of Higher Education: Document Sheds Light on Investigation at Harvard
From Columbia's Responsible Conduct of Research course: Case Study: The Business of Mentoring
Also read the questions sent out in the course email.

Some links, courtesy of Jenny Gleason:
Sigma Xi journal (American Scientist) , which has a column on ethics in every issue: http://www.americanscientist.org/
Sigma Xi Ethics resources: http://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/ethics/index.shtml
The grad hacker blog is : http://www.insidehighered.com/taxonomy/term/835
The entry that Jenny mentioned is: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/embracing-criticism

Feb. 01 Joy Ward F. A. Bazzaz. 1990. " The Response of Natural Ecosystems to the Rising Global CO2 Levels ." Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics . 21 167-196.
Clint J. Springer and Joy K. Ward. 2007. " Flowering time and elevated atmospheric CO 2 ." New Phytologist . 176(2) . 243–255.
Feb. 08 Mark Holder Fitch, W.M., 1971. "Rate of change of concomitantly variable codons". Journal of Molecular Evolution , 1(1) , p.84-96. Sent via email
Lakner et al. 2011. " What's in a Likelihood? Simple Models of Protein Evolution and the Contribution of Structurally Viable Reconstructions to the Likelihood ." Systematic Biology 60(2) 161-174
Feb. 15 NA Canceled
Feb. 22 Paulyn Cartwright Gould, S J. 1970. "Dollo on Dolloʼs law: irreversibility and the status of evolutionary laws". Journal of the History of Biology 3, no. 1928 : 189-212. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4330539?origin=JSTOR-pdf
Nawrocki and Cartwright - in review. You should have received a link to the document via email.
Feb. 29 Maria Orive R. R. Hudson. 1990. " Gene genealogies and the coalescent process ." Oxford Surveys in Evolutionary Biology . 7 : 1-44.
Scott Williamson and Maria Orive 2002. " The Genealogy of a Sequence Subject to Purifying Selection at Multiple Sites ." Molecular Biology and Evolution . 19(8) . 1376-1384.
Mar. 7 Jenny Gleason The Marie Curie SPECIATION Network, 2011. What do we need to know about speciation? Trends in ecology evolution , 331(6156) , p.1-13. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21978464 .

Gleason, J.M. et al., 2009. Identification of quantitative trait loci function through analysis of multiple cuticular hydrocarbons differing between Drosophila simulans and Drosophila sechellia females. Heredity , 103(5) , p.416-424. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19654611 .
Mar. 14 No Class Talk in the Relays Room of the Burge Union: "Untangling tropical canopies with LiDAR remote sensing to link community dynamics with the future of biosphere-atmosphere interactions in the Amazon."
Mar. 21 Spring Break
Mar. 28 Tom Taylor Taylor, T.N. et al., 1995. Fossil arbuscular mycorrhizae from the early Devonian. Mycologia , 87(4) . 560-573. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3760776?origin=crossref
Krings, M. et al., 2007. Fungal endophytes in a 400-million-yr-old land plant: infection pathways, spatial distribution, and host responses. New Phytologist , 174(3) . 648-657. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8...
Apr. 4 Ford Ballantyne L. R. Taylor. 1961. " Aggregation, Variance, and Mean " Nature . 189(4766) . 732-735.
Keil et al . 2010. " Predictions of Taylor’s power law, density dependence and pink noise from a neutrally modeled time series " Journal of Theoretical Biology . 265 . 78-86.
Apr. 11 Kirsten Jensen Holmes, J. C. and W. M. Bethel. 1972. "Modification of intermediate host behaviour by parasites". Zool J. Linn. Soc. 51: Suppl. 1 , 123-149. (available on HawkDrive).
Jensen, K. and S. A. Bullard. 2010. " Characterization of a diversity of tetraphyllidean and rhinebothriidean cestode larval types, with comments on host associations and life-cycles ." International Journal for Parasitology 40(8) . 889-910.
Apr. 18 Lena Hileman Cubas et al. 1999 " An epigenetic mutation responsible for natural variation in floral symmetry " Nature . 401 . 157-160.
Preston et al. 2011. " Gradual disintegration of the floral symmetry gene network is implicated in the evolution of a wind-pollination syndrome " PNAS 108(6) . 2343–2348.
Apr. 25 Bryan Foster Leibold, M.A., Holyoak, M., Mouquet, N., Amarasekare, P., Chase, J.M., Hoopes, M.F., Holt, R.D., Shurin, J.B., Law, R., Tilman, D., Loreau, M. & Gonzales, A. (2004) The metacommunity concept: a framework for multiscale community ecology. Ecology Letters, 7, 601–613.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00608.x/full

Foster B. L., E. J. Questad, C. D. Collins, C. A. Murphy, T. L. Dickson and V. H. Smith. 2011. Seed availability constrains plant species sorting along a soil fertility gradient. Journal of Ecology 99:473-481.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2010.01769.x/full

May 2 Justin Blumenstiel Hickey, D.A., 1982. "Selfish DNA: A Sexually-Transmitted Nuclear Parasite". Genetics , 101(3-4) , p.519-531. Available from http://www.genetics.org/content/101/3-4/519.full.pdf+html
Castillo, D.M. et al., 2011. "Molecular evolution under increasing transposable element burden in Drosophila: A speed limit on the evolutionary arms race". BMC Evolutionary Biology , 11(1) , p.258. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/11/258

The web page for the 2011 version of the class is: "https://phylo.bio.ku.edu/content/current-eeb-research-spring-2011