Abstract
The recent availability of extensive genetic data within and between named species has made it abundantly clear that the biological species concept does not apply in plants, animals, or microbes. The situation is richer and more interesting than Mayr or Hutchinson ever imagined — there are nested entities smaller and larger than traditional species that have important roles in ecology and evolution. Systematics, evolutionary biologists, and ecologists need to take a rankless approach, and study clades at all levels, not just the arbitrary level called species. A revolution in many areas of study, including diversification (imperfectly known as “speciation”), niche evolution, biogeography, coevolution, and conservation will follow once a rigid focus on the species level is replaced by this multi-level view.
About Professor Brent Mishler
Brent D. Mishler is the Director of the University and Jepson Herbaria and Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches about island biology, biodiversity, evolution, and phylogenetic analysis. His research interests are in the ecology and evolutionary biology of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts), as well as the theory of phylogenetic systematics. He has been heavily involved in developing electronic resources to present taxonomic and distributional information about plants to the public, with applications to conservation concerns. He has most recently been involved in developing new “spatial phylogenetic” tools for studying biodiversity and endemism using large-scale phylogenies and collection data in a geographic and statistical framework.
More information
Please contact Emma Whittington in order to get access to the Zoom link