Lecture abstract:
The arrangement and rearrangement of tectonic plates have been fundamental drivers of biodiversity changes, both increases and decreases, during Earth's history. In this presentation, I'll examine how species invasions, often facilitated by tectonic processes, have impacted the evolutionary history of life on our planet. The intensity of invasion events can be hierarchically arranged, with impacts that range from ephemeral or isolated to global and pervasive in extent. Using quantitative paleobiogeographic methods, I'll explore how species invasions at different ranks in the hierarchy result can contribute to biostratigraphically significant patterns, global biodiversity increases (such as during the Ordovician Biodiversification Event), mass extinctions (such as the Late Devonian Mass Extinction), and faunal rearrangements (such as during the Great American Biotic Interchange). The fossil record provides a long-term record of how invasion impacts may scale up through time, which can augment ecological studies of modern species invasions.
About the speaker:
Professor Alycia L. Stigall, Department of Geological Sciences, OHIO Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Studies at Ohio University, USA.
About CEED's Wilson Lectures
The CEED Wilson Lecture is an annual public lecture about geosciences provided by the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED), University of Oslo.
The lecture is in English or in Norwegian and is open to all interested.
Welcome to all!