2018 speakers
2018 abstracts
14th Annual University of Michigan Early Career Scientists Symposium
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF COLOR
The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan is pleased to present an exciting international symposium about the ecology and evolution of color. The symposium will be held Saturday, March 10, 2018 in Palmer Commons, Central Campus, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The ECSS committee is delighted to announce that seven early career scientists, alongside two keynote speakers, have been selected to present their work and to participate in discussions. The keynote speakers for 2018 are: Molly Cummings, University of Texas at Austin, School of Biological Sciences and Marcus Kronforst, University of Chicago, Department of Ecology and Evolution.
STUDENTS (grad and undergrad) and POSTDOCS from ALL UNIVERSITIES are invited to present their RESEARCH POSTERS on ANY TOPIC.
The symposium will highlight the work of these up-and-coming scientists whose research foci span a breadth of subfields and levels of organization, including but not limited to: function of color, visual ecology, micro- and macroevolutionary mechanisms mediating pigmentation diversity, pollination biology, and mechanisms of color production.
Coloration is fundamental to the ecology and evolution of organisms and has a valuable research legacy across plants and animals. Recent innovations in both technology and investigative approaches have propelled coloration to an exciting emerging frontier in integrative biology. Our speakers study color from diverse perspectives across spatial and temporal scales, including: genetics of color production and pigmentation, development and plasticity of color phenotypes, visual ecology, color polymorphism, flower ecology and evolution, plant-pollinator interactions, aposematism and crypsis, visual mimicry, signalling theory and behavioral ecology, symbiosis and its role in coloration, sexual selection, trait evolution, speciation and diversification. Our synthetic keynote speakers will explore the current state of coloration research and suggest exciting future research directions. The causes and consequences of color diversity provide a compelling and interdisciplinary topic spanning diverse research interests across our department.
The 2018 Early Career Scientists Symposium scientific committee includes:
Leslie Decker
Jon Massey
Talia Moore
Alison Davis Rabosky
Carol Solomon
Liz Tibbetts, ECSS committee chair
Oscar Vargas
Lisa Walsh
