Symposium: Speciation in Marine Organisms

I. Symposium Overview

One hundred and fifty years after the publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", speciation remains one of the most important, and least understood, topics in evolutionary biology. The vast majority of what is currently known about the patterns and processes of species originations derives from studies of terrestrial or freshwater species, which usually inhabit environments that are geographically very heterogeneous. This fact might account for the great importance that students of speciation attribute to allopatric speciation, and to vicariant phenomena in promoting it. Marine organisms, on the other hand, are normally found in environments where geographic barriers are supposed to be much rarer, and in any event, of very different nature from those that their terrestrial and freshwater counterparts may encounter. For these reasons, the mechanisms that drive speciation in terrestrial and freshwater taxa may be different from those that act in marine species, and the patterns of speciation may be significantly different as well.


II. Sponsors

DEDB, DEE, DIZ, DESB and American Microscopical Society


III. Symposium Objectives

Our symposium on speciation in the sea will bring together experts of different marine taxonomic groups, including fish, various invertebrates such as corals, mollusks and sponges, protists, and algae, and of different disciplines, all united by the common interest in speciation. We invited population geneticists, systematists, paleontologists, and ecologists who will be able to address the challenge of investigating marine speciation from different angles. We hope that the different expertise of the speakers will bring a new and integrative approach to the topic, and result in stimulating presentations and discussion. The symposium fits in the grand challenges in organismal biology as presented by Schwenk et al (ICB 49(1), 2009) in several ways. It addresses questions regarding the linkage between organism-environment interactions, adaptation, response to ecological factors and their role in shaping the origin of diversity in the sea. It also fits into the understanding of how genomes produce organisms, discussing the processes behind the generation and evolution of phenotypic diversity associated (or not) to speciation events in the sea.

Finally the input from a wide range of experts and their own different approach to the same fundamental question brings attention to the need of an interdisciplinary and integrative effort toward a better understanding of complex processes such as speciation.


IV. Symposium Organizers

Maria Pia Miglietta (University of Notre Dame)

Francesco Santini (University of California, Los Angeles)

Anuschka Faucci (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

V. Symposium Speakers