VIMS Internal Events
This calendar presented by
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
[PAST EVENT] Seminar: Dr. Lynne Parenti
February 5, 2015
3pm - 4:30pm
Location
VIMS - Watermen's Hall, McHugh Auditorium1375 Greate Road
Gloucester Point, VA 23062Map this location
Join Dr. Lynn Parenti, Curater at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, as she presents "Alfred Russel Wallace and his modern biogeographical legacy". Sponsored by Bank of America Visiting Scholar's Program of the School of Marine Science.
Reception at 3:00 in Watermen's Hall Lobby.
Seminar from 3:30 to 4:30 in McHugh Auditorium.
Background:
Dr. Parenti received her B.S. from Stony Brook University, NY, and Ph.D. from the City University of NY. She joined the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 1990 as a Curator of Fishes and Research Scientist. Her book co-authored with Malte Ebach, Comparative Biogeography: Discovering and Classifying Biogeographical Patterns of a Dynamic Earth (2009), received the Smithsonian Secretary's Research Prize for an outstanding research publication. Dr. Parenti is a past-President, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Honorary Fellow, California Academy of Sciences; and Honorary Member, Indonesian Ichthyological Society. She is also an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University. Her own research on coastal and freshwater fishes of the Indo-Australian Archipelago has taken her to the islands of Singapore, Borneo, New Guinea, and Sulawesi where she has walked in the footsteps of legendary biogeographer Alfred Russel Wallace.
Abstract:
Modern biogeography - the study of the distribution of plants and animals - began with British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace's 1858 hypothesis that the western part of the Malay Archipelago was "...a separated portion of continental Asia while the eastern part is a fragmentary prolongation of a former west Pacific continent.” Two principles - endemism and terrane fidelity - came together to bolster Wallace's theory of biological evolution and to illustrate that life and Earth have evolved together. Wallace (1876) subsequently adopted a classification of six global zoogeographical regions centered on the continents even though he knew that it contradicted broad biogeographic patterns, such as pantropical and trans-oceanic distributions. Today, the goal is to name biogeographical regions that reflect, not contradict, shared distribution patterns. Parenti combines powerful concepts such as endemism, terrane fidelity, and area relationships to discover biotic history and patterns. Inferred mechanisms of distribution - dispersal versus vicariance - are secondary to discovery of these natural patterns. The Malay Archipelago, with the island of Sulawesi in its center, remains a biogeographical hotspot, which means that Wallace, too, remains at the center of modern biogeography.
Reception at 3:00 in Watermen's Hall Lobby.
Seminar from 3:30 to 4:30 in McHugh Auditorium.
Background:
Dr. Parenti received her B.S. from Stony Brook University, NY, and Ph.D. from the City University of NY. She joined the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 1990 as a Curator of Fishes and Research Scientist. Her book co-authored with Malte Ebach, Comparative Biogeography: Discovering and Classifying Biogeographical Patterns of a Dynamic Earth (2009), received the Smithsonian Secretary's Research Prize for an outstanding research publication. Dr. Parenti is a past-President, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Honorary Fellow, California Academy of Sciences; and Honorary Member, Indonesian Ichthyological Society. She is also an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University. Her own research on coastal and freshwater fishes of the Indo-Australian Archipelago has taken her to the islands of Singapore, Borneo, New Guinea, and Sulawesi where she has walked in the footsteps of legendary biogeographer Alfred Russel Wallace.
Abstract:
Modern biogeography - the study of the distribution of plants and animals - began with British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace's 1858 hypothesis that the western part of the Malay Archipelago was "...a separated portion of continental Asia while the eastern part is a fragmentary prolongation of a former west Pacific continent.” Two principles - endemism and terrane fidelity - came together to bolster Wallace's theory of biological evolution and to illustrate that life and Earth have evolved together. Wallace (1876) subsequently adopted a classification of six global zoogeographical regions centered on the continents even though he knew that it contradicted broad biogeographic patterns, such as pantropical and trans-oceanic distributions. Today, the goal is to name biogeographical regions that reflect, not contradict, shared distribution patterns. Parenti combines powerful concepts such as endemism, terrane fidelity, and area relationships to discover biotic history and patterns. Inferred mechanisms of distribution - dispersal versus vicariance - are secondary to discovery of these natural patterns. The Malay Archipelago, with the island of Sulawesi in its center, remains a biogeographical hotspot, which means that Wallace, too, remains at the center of modern biogeography.
Contact
[[v|seitz, Rochelle Seitz]]