IBEE: INTEGRATING BIOGEOGRAPHY, MORPHOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY AND BEHAVIOUR IN A PHYLOGENETIC FRAMEWORK

D. James Harris (CIBIO-UP), will present a seminar entitled "IBEE: Integrating biogeography, morphology, physiology and behaviour in a phylogenetic framework" on 16th of March, at 14.30, in Campus Agrário de Vairão auditorium.

IBEE has in the past had a strong research line in phylogeny reconstruction, covering a wide range or organisms, including plants, invertebrates and vertebrates and studies have been carried out on organisms from across the globe. Especial attention has been paid to the Mediterranean basin, a known biodiversity hotspot. The European Union has set a target of halting biodiversity decline by 2010, yet many species are still being discovered - the number of accepted European species of amphibians and reptiles has nearly doubled in the last 25 years for example. Without data on numbers of species, biodiversity decline cannot be measured. The aim of IBEE is to gather data from an array of diverse fields, and assess this within the phylogenetic frameworks that have been estimated. This talk will give examples of the work being done within the group, and of planned work for 2012.

D. James Harris is a senior scientist at CIBIO, and leads the IBEE group. His main research interests are in phylogenetic analysis, mostly involving African and European amphibians and reptiles. 

Right after, at 15:45, Diana Pedroso will present the Student Seminar on "Phylogeography of the scorpion genus Buthus in the Maghreb region". Diana is an MSc student supervised by Arie Van der Meijden (CIBIO).