R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Is climate change shading out our forest wildflowers?
Speaker: Ben Lee, Ph.D., Botany at CMNH
Description coming soon.
RW Moriarty Science Seminars
Moriarty Science Seminar: Building a Practice of Community Archaeology at Indian Run/Pandenarium
R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Building a Practice of Community Archaeology at Indian Run/Pandenarium (Site 36ME253)
Speaker: Angela Jaillet-Wentling, PA DCNR
At the Indian Run or Pandenarium settlement site (36ME253), archaeology helps shine a light on the story of a free African American community in the Antebellum North. Twentieth century histories focused heavily on the enslavers and the white community surrounding the settlement, but the archaeological insight provided by the work undertaken by graduate students at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Angela Jaillet-Wentling, 2011 and Samantha Taylor, 2018) has begun to tell the stories of the Black community itself. By fleshing out the history lying underfoot, archaeological investigation has helped to generate descendant interest and involvement moving forward, as well as bridge the gap from past to present peoples. As one of several collaborators, work has focused not on a retelling but on developing a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of the settlement’s history. By adding more context to our understanding, a far more complex picture emerges of how the inhabitants fashioned a life of their own making from a structured landscape.
Moriarty Science Seminar: Biogeographic and socioeconomic drivers of global insect invasions
R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Biogeographic and socioeconomic drivers of global insect invasions
Speaker: Andrew Liebhold, US Forest Service, Morgantown, WV
Biological invasions are largely an unintended consequence of globalization. With increasing mobility, humans have accidentally transported organisms around the world, breaking the geographical boundaries that separated species ranges that persisted for millions of years of evolution. Among animals, insects are the most numerous group of species, with thousands of insect species having been established outside of their native ranges and many of these species causing immense impacts on agriculture, human health and conservation of native ecosystems.
Here, we report on an analysis of historical insect invasions in 11 world regions. We use these data to compare frequencies of invasions among different insect orders and among different insect families. Certain groups, such as the Hemiptera, Formicidae and the Staphylinidae are generally over-represented in non-native insect assemblages, while other taxa are under-represented. These patterns generally reflect characteristics of these insects that cause them to enter important invasion pathways and biological characteristics that facilitate invasions. These results ultimately can be of use when conducting invasive pest risk analysis.
Moriarty Science Seminar: Every Family Has Its Junk Drawer: Adventures in Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) Systematics
R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Every Family Has Its Junk Drawer: Adventures in Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) Systematics
Speaker: Kevin Keegan
Noctuidae moths are one of the most successful animal lineages on the planet, being abundant in nearly all terrestrial habitats and with over 12,000 species globally—some of which are among the world’s most damaging agricultural pests. Despite their success and importance in terrestrial food webs, relationships among the overwhelming majority of noctuids remain poorly understood, hampering a broad range of scientific and applied biological endeavors. The extreme morphological diversity of these more than 12,000 species has vexed taxonomists for centuries resulting in “junk drawer” groups: moths that have no business being classified together but whose proper taxonomic placement within Noctuidae has remained a mystery. This talk will provide an overview of recent advances in our understanding of evolutionary relationships among Noctuidae that have combined new natural history and molecular data, along with adult and larval morphological data to produce the largest ever molecular phylogeny of Noctuidae. These new findings have resulted in a taxonomic sea-change for the group, including the discovery and description of new tribes and subfamilies, and have provided a roadmap for future systematic studies of Noctuidae across the world.
Moriarty Science Seminar: Tandem Effects of Changes in Both Climate and Land Use on Body Size
R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Tandem Effects of Changes in Both Climate and Land Use on Body Size
Speaker: Amanda Martin
Alterations in body size, a fundamental ecological trait, can have profound impacts on an organism’s life history and ecology with long-lasting effects that span multiple biological scales. Increased warming from climate change has led to smaller body size due to impacts on growth (i.e., Bergmann’s rule and temperature-size rule), but several exceptions exist. The impacts of land use change may offer an explanation as why not all animals are getting smaller in response to climate change. While impacts of land use on body size should adhere to the same physiological principles due to urban heat island effect, urbanized environments are also characterized by substantial habitat fragmentation and altered resource availability and quality which selects for larger body sizes associated with enhanced dispersal abilities. Thus, understanding the combined effects of climate and land use changes on body size is imperative for biodiversity preservation and predicting future responses to rapid environmental change.
Moriarty Science Seminar: Beasts of the Southern Wild: the African Aurochs in Art, Ritual, and DNA.
R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Beasts of the Southern Wild: the African Aurochs in Art, Ritual, and DNA.
Speaker: Shayla Monroe
Aurochsen, the swift and powerful wild predecessors of domesticated cattle, have captivated human beings since our earliest encounters. In the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild, a young girl named Wink fixates on the mythical return of the aurochs, convinced that they are harbingers of the extreme climate change and the flooding that threatens her coastal Louisiana home. Dramatic shifts in weather patterns and ecology also served as the backdrop of interactions between early human populations and the African aurochs, Bos primigenius africanus. Rock art, archaeological remains, and aDNA analysis all tell an interlocking story of the African aurochs as a prevailing preoccupation in the lives and rituals of human communities at the dawn of social complexity in the Sahara and the Nile Valley, a time of intense environmental change. The genetic legacy of the aurochs in domesticated cattle on the African continent reveals an enduring entanglement between the genus Bos and the genus Homo that is unique in the long history of human-animal interactions.
