One-semester fellowships for graduate students at NESCent

NESCent

National Evolutionary Synthesis Center

Graduate Fellowships

The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center is now seeking to include graduate traineeship to our portfolio in facilitating broadly synthetic research to address fundamental questions in evolutionary science. We are offering one-semester fellowships for graduate students to pursue research either with a NESCent sabbatical scholar, working group, or postdoctoral fellow. The research should be in line with the goals of the sabbatical scholar and/or working group and may include integrating datasets, developing databases, performing analyses, programming and software development, etc. Support will not be provided to collect or generate new data. When relevant, graduate students are expected to be full members of working group. Ultimately we expect the graduate student to lead and author aspects of the research.

Read more >>> http://www.nescent.org/science/GraduateFellowships.php

Oportunidad de beca para estudiante de entomologia

Teaching/research assistantship for a M.S. or Ph.D. student at the University of Memphis

A teaching/research assistantship is available for a M.S. or Ph.D. student in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Memphis under the supervision of Dr. Duane McKenna, beginning August 2011. Students interested in insect (especially beetle) genomics, molecular phylogenetics, and/or the evolutionary ecology of insect-plant interactions are encouraged to apply. Prior laboratory and field experience preferred.

Interested students may inquire by contacting dmckenna [at] memphis [.] edu. Further information about the Department of Biological Sciences and the Graduate Program can be found at http://www.memphis.edu/biology/graduate.htm

A response to recent proposals for integrative taxonomy

Authors: PADIAL, JOSÉ M.; DE LA RIVA, IGNACIO1

Source: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 101, Number 3, November 2010 , pp. 747-756(10)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/bij/2010/00000101/00000003/art00019

Abstract:
Several proposals have been launched under the new concept `integrative taxonomy' to frame the future development of species discovery and description. We consider that some of those proposals have failed to be truly integrative, by not acknowledging the limitations of operational definitions of species, by defending some kinds of evidence as universally superior, by considering taxonomy to be irreconcilable with population genetics, or by ignoring that the heterogeneity of evolutionary processes often precludes full character congruence in species. Here we defend a taxonomy where species exist, but not in any particular way everyone might want them to exist; a taxonomy open to data and methods from population biology, phylogeography and phylogenetics, as well as any other discipline providing evidence about the origin and evolution of species. This new taxonomy embraces all the consequences of considering species as lineages of reproductive populations, encouraging the use of as many lines of evidence as possible, but without negating that a single line may also be the only one providing evidence for a particular species. Species cannot only be those reproductive populations showing broad character congruence and/or reproductive isolation, due to the different degrees of character congruence, as well as of reproductive isolation, that result from the heterogeneity of evolutionary processes causing lineage splitting and divergence. Also, any kind of character - and not only those established by tradition or fashion - is potentially relevant as evidence of lineage divergence. To conciliate the authors who only see species supported by broad character congruence as good species hypotheses, we explain how a hypothesis can gain corroboration using single or multiple lines of evidence, even in cases of discordance with other lines of evidence. Finally, we propose guidelines to identify the expected degree of stability (preliminary, unstable, and stable) of species hypotheses. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 101, 747-756.

Keywords: corroboration; lineage; species concept

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2010.01528.x