Wallace Coffee Talks - 6th October 2020

 Wallace Coffee Talks - Autumn 2020

6th October - 1pm - Online (Zoom)

Fancy a cup of coffee or tea and learning more about the researchers at Swansea university? Come join us at the Wallace coffee talks: an informal seminar series where students, staff and others related to Swansea university speak about their research or personal interests.

Jack Cooper

Functional diversity of sharks through time: past, present and future.

Sharks are ecological linchpins, having stabilised worldwide marine ecosystems for over 400 million years. Today, these ancient ocean predators are among the most threatened groups with over a quarter of species at risk of extinction. Traditionally, scientists have assessed the effects of extinctions on ecosystems by focusing on changes in species diversity. However, the ecology of species depends on their functional traits. The diversity of these traits (functional diversity) dictates how communities stabilise ecosystems and fill diverse niches. Such trait diversity can be recorded through time in the fossil record, providing valuable information on the ecological consequences of past extinctions. This talk will discuss why sharks and their teeth are ideal models for studying changes in functional diversity through deep time, and will lay out the key objectives of the upcoming PhD project to assess these changes in the past, present and future.

Here you can view Jack's talk:

@CooperPalaeo

https://www.catalinapimiento.com/

Jordi Solà-Codina

Do interactions between spatial environmental patterns drive the structure and functioning of ecosystems?

The study of environmental effects on species communities has produced a range of applications for ecosystem-based management. These types of relationships consist on understanding the magnitude and directionality in the community or species responses to specific environmental changes - in the form of environmental gradients. Beyond the study of these gradients, the arrangement of environmental differences over space - spatial environmental heterogeneity - contributes to shape how organisms interact with their surroundings and with one another. My PhD focuses on understanding how these differences in spatial organization of environmental factors drive the composition of communities and the processes occurring within ecosystems. In this first chapter of the PhD, I am looking at the interactions of the two main and essentially different spatial arrangements of environmental drivers -environmental gradients vs. spatial environmental heterogeneity- and how these shape community structure and ecosystem functioning. To this end, I am using an in situ experimental design to test the effects of two contrasting levels of spatial environmental heterogeneity on community structure and ecosystem functioning along the intertidal environmental gradient of the rocky shore. Through image analysis, I quantify community structure parameters and the functioning associated with these communities. The outcome of this study aims to explain the combined effects of heterogeneity and gradients to provide a view on the importance of heterogeneity for a) abiotic and biotic stress reduction, b) the reduction in abundance of dominant species, c) increase in diversity and consequent putative increase in species interactions, and d) the disparate role that specific heterogeneity traits can have along environmental gradients. In addition, the results in this study will contribute to the discussion around the role of spatial environmental heterogeneity in driving the response of communities along environmental drivers and its potential importance for conservation.

See Jordi's talk here:

@JordiSC03