March 10, 2022

5:00pm 1100 TLSB

EcoEvoPub Seminar Series
UCLA, Dept of EEB

" Graduate Student Presentations "

Ellie Diamant

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA, Yeh Lab

 

“One way to succeed in the city? Phenotypic shifts in Dark-eyed Juncos across multiple Southern California cities”

 

Anthropogenic change alters environments and introduces novel stressors to multiple species and communities. Understanding how populations shift and cope in response to these stressors is essential to test evolution in real-time and predict our impacts on natural populations. In urban landscapes, populations that survive undergo rapid evolutionary and behavioral changes in response to strong selective pressures. I am testing three independent colonist urban populations of Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), a common North American songbird, to determine if the birds have shifted behavioral and morphological traits similarly in comparison to non-urban populations, or if similar environmental differences can result in different adaptations and population trajectories. Here, I will summarize behavioral and morphological findings thus far, finding that while many – though not all – traits have shifted in similar directions across multiple cities, variations in traits exist between cities and time, potentially driven by differences between cities. Specifically, the Los Angeles population has exhibited a unique shift towards smaller bill size in comparison to other Southern California cities. Together, these results provide perspective on how predictable population response is to strong anthropogenic change.

 

Graham Montgomery

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA, Tingley Lab

 

“Evidence Synthesis in EEB”

Evidence synthesis is the process of bringing together information on a topic from a wide range of sources. In ecology & evolution, we often do this through narrative reviews, systematic reviews, systematic maps, meta-analyses, and more. For EEP next Thursday, I’ll talk about the different types of evidence synthesis, some best practices based on what I’ve come across, and new synthesis tools. As part of this, some things I’ll cover include how to do literature searches, platforms for reviewing articles for meta-analyses, and useful R packages. I’ll also give some examples and talk about how you can use evidence synthesis in your own research, regardless of what you study.

Host: EEB Graduate Students