[Coral-List] ICRS mini-symposium

Nancy Knowlton nknowlton at ucsd.edu
Mon Dec 15 20:27:17 EST 2003


Those of you who work with corals know that their systematics is 
often a challenge regardless of whether one is working at the level 
of species or higher taxonomic levels.  Hence the following 
mini-symposium for the upcoming Okinawa meetings.

1-1	Coral Taxonomy and Phylogeny: Integrating Molecular and 
Morphological Approaches (Nancy Knowlton, Ann F. Budd, and Hironobu 
Fukami)
At present, most coral scientists depend on classical morphological 
taxonomy to identify the coral species and define higher groups. 
However, recent studies using molecular techniques do not always 
support conventional morphological assignments. Molecular results may 
prompt reinterpretation of morphological characters, and molecular 
results also need to be considered in light of morphological 
characters and the fossil record of corals. Here we propose a 
symposium whose goal is to further the integration of molecular and 
morphological approaches, which is crucial because only morphology is 
available for fossil material. We hope to bring together scientists 
from a diverse array of disciplines (paleontology, systematics, 
reproductive biology, molecular genetics) in order to define areas of 
conflict in data sets and avenues of future collaborations.

We have made a good start on our program (summarized below), but 
would like to persuade a few more of you to participate.  Please let 
us know if you would be interested in doing so, and send in your 
abstract!!  If you want to suggest someone that we should contact 
directly please do so as well.  The more diverse the participants, 
the more we can learn about how to tackle this challenging but 
central problem.

Many many thanks,
Nancy Budd, Nancy Knowlton and Hiro Fukami


PARTICIPANTS (some tentative) AND TITLES
1. Budd, AF: Reassessment of morphologic characters in the suborder Faviina

2. Carlon, D: Speciation in Caribbean Favia

3. Fukami, H: Molecular analyses of the suborder Faviina

4. Gameil, Mohammed: "Maastrichtian colonial corals from the Simsima 
Formation, Al Faiyah Range, United Arab Emirates”

5. Johnson, KG: Oligo-Miocene Caribbean coral turnover (tentative)

6. Kerr, Alexander M: "Combined "supertree" phylogeny of Scleractinia 
using matrix representation parsimony"

7. Knowlton, N: The Montastraea annularis complex

8. McFadden, C: Molecular analyses of alcyonarians (tentative)

9. Romano, SL: Molecular analyses of scleractinians (tentative)

10. Rosen, Brian: Morphological analyses of fossil and living 
scleractinians (tentative)

11. Sanchez, Juan:
(1) talk= "High morphological differentiation and overlapping 
morphotypes in a Caribbean gorgonian coral: molecular approaches and 
phenotypic plasticity". Juan Armando Sánchez;
(2) poster= "DNA sequences revealed a new shallow-water relative of 
Atlantic gorgonian octocorals (Cnidaria: Octocorallia: Gorgoniidae)". 
Juan Armando Sánchez & Alison R. Acosta-de-Sánchez"

12. Stake, Joel: molecular-morphological study on Porites and Agaricia

13.  Wallace, CC: "From Eocene fossils to modern genetics: Examining 
the proposed Post-Miocene monophyletic origins of Acropora" (with 
Allen Chen and Brian Rosen)

-- 




Nancy Knowlton

Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation
Marine Biology Research Division 0202
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0202
858-822-2486 (direct line)
858-822-1267 (fax)
http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/

for courier deliveries:
Marine Biology Research Division
8750 Biological Grade
Hubbs Hall Bldg., rm. 2150
La Jolla, CA 92037





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