Relationships between land use, biodiversity and related ecosystem processes

Plant-environment interactions in semiarid grasslands: insights from 'long-term' experiments and traits of leaves, roots and more

Host: Evolution and Adaptation

Simon Loader, (Natural History Museum, London, UK)

“The Importance of Museum collections for understanding Vertebrate Biodiversity”

Bio-sketch (speaker)

Dr Loader has recently taken up the position as Principal Curator in Charge of Vertebrates at the NHM (2017) - managing a collection of over 3.5 million specimens. Previously he was a lecturer in Biogeography/Zoology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and The University of Roehampton, London. Dr Loader's research encompasses Africa as his geographical area of research, and amphibians are his group of expertise. Using both Africa and vertebrates Dr Loader applies a range of approaches in systematics to investigate the current patterns and processes behind the maintenance and formation of biodiversity.

Abstract

Museum specimens are important documents of biodiversity but often inaccessible and difficult to get data from. In this talk, I will discuss recent case studies from the Vertebrate collections of the Natural History Museum in London which outline the recent advances which have allowed us to unlock the potential of museum collections. Museums are important repositories of data and unlocking their potential will be key to understanding biodiversity and its change.

Christian Wilhelm (University of Leipzig), hosted by Physiological Diversity: “New ideas for landscape management for integrated support of biodiversity, agriculture and chemical industry in response to climate change"

Valerio Pillar, (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), sabbatical guest at the MLU, Institute of Biology, Geobotany and Botanical Garden: “Searching for traits linked to hidden factors in community assembly”

Wilfried Thuiller, (CNRS-University of Grenoble Alpes, France), hosted by GEO BON and Biodiversity Conservation: “A story of scale in Ecology”

Lenore Fahrig, (Carlton University), sabbatical guest at sDiv: “Why do several small patches hold more species than few large patches?”  

Alexandra Weigelt (Universität Leipzig), Liesje Mommer (Wageningen University) & Daniel Laughlin (University of Wyoming):

“sROOT - developing a coherent understanding of root trait variation across the globe”

Topics:

Content iDiv DFG Proposal 3rd funding period (Jon Chase)

Status quo new iDiv building (Sabine Matthiä)

Faktencheck Biodiversity (Christian Wirth)

CBD 2020 (Andrea Perino)

KoLa Leipzig (Eva Köhler)

Sharon Y. Strauss(University of Carolina, Davis): „Coexistence in close relatives - beyond competition”