The Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution discussion group is open to all faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. We meet each Wednesday from 1-2pm in the CW Andrews Conference Room (SN-3125A) to discuss ideas and issues in the broad areas of animal behaviour, ecology, evolution and conservation biology.

Anyone interested in leading a discussion should contact either Alex Bond or Dr. Ted Miller.

This Week's Topic - 17 March 2010

This week, Alex Bond will lead a discussion on open access publishing. Read editorials by Evans and MacCallum & Parthasarathy, and read a research article by Eysenbach here.

Previous Topics

Information theoretic approaches vs. frequentist statistics
Read the discussion between Steidl and Sleep here.

The role of natural history in modern science
Read the paper by Beehler here.

Darwinism beyond biology
Read the paper by Derry, and rebuttals from Marshall and Hansell here.

Estimating dispersal using molecular methods
Read the paper by Broquet and Petit here.

A general theory of ecology
Read the paper by Scheiner & Willig here.

Stupidity in scientific research
Read the paper by Schwartz here.

The communication of science to decision-makers and to society
Read the papers by Hutchings et al here and here.
And here are the brief and transcript presented to the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development.

The adaptive significant of enigmatic traits
Read the paper by Westley et al here

Mutualistic networks
Read the paper by Bascompte here

"Citizen Science" and engaging the public
Read the paper by Silvertown here

When conservation biologists eat swordfish
Read the paper by Bearzi here

The Tragedy of the Reviewer Commons
Read the paper by Hochberg et al. here.

Group Selection
One article by Shavit & Millstein (PDF) and a piece from the Boston Globe

Water hyacinth - useful in aquatic bioremediation, but also an fast-spreading alien invasive species
Two papers - one from 1933 and one from 2004. The book mentioned by Tom Chapman was "The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped and Everest Was Named" by John Keay.

Re-wilding North America
Read a summary paper by Donlan et al (PDF)
A rebuttal from Rubenstein et al (PDF)

How to Address Measurement Error
Read the paper by Arnqvist & Mårtensson (PDF)

Biases in Listing Endangered Species in Canada
Read the paper by Mooers et al (PDF)