Chapter 18 McWilliams Oral Exam Guide
- List of researchers that I didn’t know on my written exam
- Go through citations and summarize each one with 1 sentence
Researchers to review
(a) Jared Diamond
http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Welcome.html
NAS member; professor of physiology at UCLA Medical School; 2 parallel careers: fluid transport by the gallbladder, and New Guinea birds;
1. cellular and molecular mechanisms of ion and non-electrolyte transport and permeation across biological membranes, especially across those of the gall bladder, an anatomically simple model system for more important organs like the kidney and intestine.
2. evolutionary biology of New Guinea birds
Wrote for Nature, Discover, Natural History magazine and then several books for the public. Most famous for the ‘The Third Chimpanzee’: a book about evolution of the human animal aimed for a public audience.
(b) E.O. Wilson (Edward Osborne Wilson)
Research Professor at Harvard; American biologist recognized as the world’s leading authority on ants. He was also the foremost proponent of sociobiology, the study of the genetic basis of the social behaviour of all animals, including humans.
“Darwin’s heir”; environmental advocacy; Crafoord prize (prize awarded to areas not covered by Nobel Prize); 30 books; 430 publications
The theory of island biogeography = foundation of the field of conservation area design; examines the factors that affect the species richness and diversification of isolated natural communities
(c) Russell Lande
Known for his early work extending quantitative genetics theory to the context of evolutionary biology in natural populations. He developed a stochastic theory for the evolution of quantitative traits by genetic drift and natural selection. Evolution of phenotypic plasticity
Stochastic population dynamics book (Lande et al 2003)
(d) Ernst Mayr
20th century leading evolutionary biologist; theory of peripatric speciation based on his work with birds
Book: Systematics and the Origin of Species. A species not just a group of morphologically similar species but a population that can breed only among themselves.
(e) Peter Hochachka
Canadian professor; zoologist. With George Somero: study of biochemical adaptation to the environment.
- enzyme adaptation to temperature and pressure; mechanisms underlying tolerance to low oxygen environments; bioenergetics of exercise; metabolism in diving seals; allometric scaling; human adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia
(f) Mike Angilletta
Book: Thermal adaptation
Research areas: behavior and physiology; optimal performance; thermal physiology in ectotherms
Thermal performance curves
(g) R.D. Gates (covered on written exam)
Director of Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology:
- coral-algal symbiosis and the capacity for corals to acclimatize (Gates et al 1992)
- science communication efforts
- coral biology and human-assisted coral evolution; the idea of “super corals”
(h) Max Kleiber
Swiss agricultural biologist; energy metabolism and respiration chamber development
Known for:
1.) how to predict basal metabolic rate (¾ power of body weight was the most reliable basis)
2.) comparing nutrient requirements among animals of different size
description of the ratio of metabolism to body mass: Kleiber’s law
(i) Knut Schmidt-Nielsen
Ecophysiology field; animal physiology; Professor at Duke University
“the father of comparative physiology and integrative biology”
NAS member; 5 books on animal size scaling, comparative physiology, “How Animals Work” and “Animal Physiology”
Holes in and citations to know from written exam
Other examples of thermoregulatory ability and principle of acclimation:
- beneficial acclimation theory
Smaller animals have a fitness advantage – this may be a beneficial acclimatory response rather than a detriment and sign of deteriorating health. Re-allocating energy to a more productive form.
Acclimation may not be beneficial b/c (Woods and Harrison 2002):
1. timescale of adaptation is longer than environmental variation
2. environmental cues of adaptive acclimation may be unreliable
3. may cost more to adapt than not to
4. migration by adjacent populations may swamp out genes for for adaptive acclimation.
Number 4 isn’t necessarily a reason for why acclimation itself isn’t beneficial but a reason why beneficial acclimation may not matter in the long run even if itself beneficial.
Number 4 could be a problem in coral restoration activities and out-planting. If you out-plant fragments that haven’t experienced that environmental cue or they may lack plasticity ability and if you mix those genes in the general pool, you may hinder the adaptation of those already there.
Would be cool to do an opinion piece on coral restoration..
But climate change could be acting at too quick of a pace for the above matter so something may be better than nothing.