Our 11^th Funk Lecture on Biogeography (September 28th, 2022) was by Dr. Andres Lira Noriega. Dr. Lira-Noriega’s (Institute of Ecology, INECOL) research focuses on the analysis of species’ distributions and ecological niches at multiple spatial and temporal scales. To do this, he makes extensive use of databases of specimens from scientific collections or from field and laboratory observations, which he combines with ecological niche modeling techniques, geographic information systems, and remote sensing tools to have a synthetic vision (predictive and descriptive) about why species are where they are. In this webinar, Dr. Lira-Noriega will talk about a new framework to predict susceptibility to infectious diseases in wildlife, recently published in PNAS ( https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas….

Our 10^th Funk Lecture on Biogeography (February 23^rd, 2022) was by Dr. Jenny McGuire.  Dr. McGuire is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech, USA, a mostly terrestrial ecologist who focuses on addressing conservation-derived questions about species’ dynamic responses to changing climates and habitats.  Dr. McGuire will presented her talk originally scheduled for the Conservation and Restoration Symposia in the postponed IBS Vancouver 2022 Conference.

Our 9^th Funk Lecture (November 24^th, 2021) had three guest lecturers: the award-winners for the best oral presentations from the Virtual IBS Early Career Biogeographers Conference of October 2021.

• Oskar Hagen, ‘Best Oral Presentation’ Winner; sponsored by PeerJ
• Rohit Chakravarty, ‘Honourary Mention Oral Presentation’; sponsored by the IBS
• Nina Witteveen, ‘Honourary Mention Oral Presentation’; sponsored by the IBS

Our 8^th guest lecturer (September 29^th, 2021) was Dr. Ole Vetaas. Dr. Vetaas is a Professor in Biogeography at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is a vegetation ecologist and biogeographer with research interests in diversity, succession, and spatial dynamics. His main research aim is to explain why species are distributed non-randomly in the environment and he is especially interested in the variation of biodiversity from the lowland with high human impact to the summits and recent research deals with introduced trees (alien species) and forests in relation to climate mitigation.

Our 7th guest lecturer (May 26th, 2021) was Dr. Jessica Blois.  Dr. Blois is an Associate Professor at the University of California – Merced, USA, whose research focuses on how environmental and biological drivers shape responses of North American mammals and vegetation to past, present, and future climate changes.

Our sixth guest lecturer (April 28th, 2021) was Dr. Michael Sundue.  Dr. Sundue is a Professor at the University of Vermont, whose research program seeks to discover and describe biological diversity. Broadly interested in land plants, with a particular focus on the ferns and lycophytes, Sundue’s work ranges from taxonomic and floristic studies to macroevolutionary questions. Many of these questions are often best addressed by consulting herbaria and conducting field work, and therefore herbarium activities and collecting expeditions are central to his research.

Our fifth guest lecturer (March 31, 2021) was Dr. Gretta Pecl from the University of Tasmania. Dr. Pecl is a Professor of marine ecology whose research includes detecting and understanding the mechanisms behind species range extensions, and population and fishery responses to environmental change. She was instrumental in the development of the citizen science model Redmap for ecological monitoring and community engagement. She is currently working with international colleagues on a Global Network of Marine Hotspots and is internationally renowned for her innovative work on the biology and ecology of cephalopods.

Our fourth guest in the Funk Lecture Series on Biogeography was Jahnavi Joshi – Assistant Professor at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular biology, in Hyderabad, India. She studies systematics, biogeography, diversification, and community assembly in the tropics primarily using arthropods as a model system.

Our third guest in the Funk Lecture Series on Biogeography was Inger Greve Alsos – Professor at Tromsø University Museum, UiT The Arctic University of Norway.  Alsos is the leader of the Norwegian Centre for Environmental DNA from Arctic Ecosystems Through Time (NEAT).  Her research focuses on past and likely future distribution of arctic and subarctic vascular plants. She has combined genetic data (modern and ancient DNA), species distribution modelling, and fossil data to explore dispersal routes, colonization frequencies, and long-term genetic effects of climate change. She is currently working on ancient DNA of lake sediments from Iceland, Svalbard, Northern Fennoscandia, Polar Ural and the Alps, as well as a full-genome reference library for the Norwegian and Polar flora.

Our second guest in the Funk Lecture Series on Biogeography was José María Fernández-Palacios (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1958) – Ecology Professor at La Laguna (Tenerife) University. He is PI of the Island Ecology and Biogeography Research Group and was elected as President of the recently founded Society of Island Biology (SIB). His research lines include Island Biogeography, Forests Dynamics, PalaeoEcology and Restoration Ecology mainly focused in Macaronesian ecosystems. He is author of many scientific and outreach publications, including 12 books dealing with the Canaries in particular, and islands in general among them the 2nd ed. of “Island Biogeography. Ecology, evolution and conservation”, authored with Rob Whittaker and published by Oxford University Press, a well-known text book used in undergraduate and graduate Island Biogeography courses, whose 3rd ed. will come soon.

Our first guest in the Funk Lecture Series was Mark Lomolino – co-founder and past-President of the International Biogeography Society, and co-author of Biogeography (Lomolino, M. V., B. R. Riddle, R. J. Whittaker and J. H. Brown.  2010.  Biogeography, 4^th Edition.  Sinauer Associates., new edition coming soon), a common text used in undergraduate and graduate Biogeography courses.  Mark is a professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, in Syracuse, NY, USA, whose research covers biogeography, ecology, evolution and conservation of wildlife inhabiting insular, montane, and fragmented ecosystems.