2013 Illg Distinguished Lectureship

Dr. Gonzalo Giribet

Harvard University

Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and

Curator of Invertebrates, Museum of Comparative Zoology

Scientific Lecture

Understanding the Animal Tree of Life--from Morphology to Genomes

Wednesday, June 19 at the Friday Harbor Laboratories Commons

Since the times of Haeckel zoologists have attempted to understand the composition and the relationships among the animal phyla. While morphology has played a fundamental role in elucidating these patterns our understanding of animal phylogeny has changed drastically after the incorporation of molecular data. The widespread use of large fragments of genomes and transcriptomes in modern phylogenetic analyses is helping to perfect the picture of the Tree of Life.

Public Lecture

Around the world in search of invertebrates for species discovery, biogeography and systematics

Thursday, June 20 at the San Juan Community Theater, 7:30pm

Invertebrates dominate all the ecosystems on earth and are perfect models for studying the patterns of distribution of organisms in our planet. During the past decade I have collected invertebrates in all continents and all oceans and discovered new species to address biodiversity questions and to study biogeographic and phylogenetic patterns.