Join us on Wednesday, January 29 at 10:00 pm UTC, for a talk by Dr. Jamie Wood.
A core focus of biogeographical research is how climatic, geological and environmental factors influence the distribution of species on Earth. Yet interactions with other species, through processes such as competition, predation and parasitism, may also strongly influence species ranges. Such interactions can be relatively straightforward to observe between living species, but for extinct or threatened species may be lost, or largely obscured, by the passage of time. In this seminar I will explore how the recent fossil record can shine light on lost species interactions, drawing upon case studies from New Zealand that illustrate how understanding such interactions can help resolve aspects of evolutionary and biogeographical history.
Jamie is a senior lecturer in environmental genomics at the University of Adelaide and Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. His research applies evolutionary and environmental genomics approaches in combination with complimentary techniques (e.g. palynology, macrofossils, radiocarbon dating, stable isotope analyses) to study the composition and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems over the past 50,000 years.
