Autumn 2015 SENR Seminar

The SENR Seminar Series welcomes Lauren Chapman, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Conservation, McGill University, Montreal. Dr. Chapman present Localized Extreme Hypoxia and Phenotypic Divergence in East African Fishes.

Aquatic hypoxia (low oxygen) provides a useful system for exploring ecological and evolutionary consequences of living under extreme conditions. It is also an environmental stressor of accelerating interest due to human activities that have increased the extent of hypoxic waters on a global scale. Trade-offs in the costs and benefits of living in hypoxic and normoxic habitats may contribute to faunal diversification by creating spatially divergent selection that leads to specialized phenotypes as illustrated in studies of African fishes from hypoxic swamps and associated normoxic sites. In these systems dissolved oxygen is strong predictor of intraspecific variation, particularly in traits related to oxygen update efficiency or oxygen limitations. Studies of fish persisting under extreme hypoxia highlight the importance of localized extreme habitats as model systems for studying divergent natural selection and more generally for exploring effects of physiochemical stressors on ecological and evolutionary processes.

The SENR Seminar begins at 4:10 p.m in 103 Kottman Hall with a video link to 123 Williams Hall on the Wooster campus.