Nere Title
 
 
NERE Mission Statement:

NERE, the Network for Experimental Research on Evolution, is a University of California Multicampus Research Program funded and administered through the UC Office of the President and its constituent UC campuses. NERE (pronounced “near”) supports collaboration, communication, and graduate education concerned with research on biological evolution. NERE serves as a conduit for interactions between evolutionists within the University of California system and between University of California scientists and the global scientific community.

NERE Frontpage News:

Born to Run Article Coming to Science Scope

An article featuring this lesson has been accepted for publication in Science Scope, NSTA’s journal for middle school science teachers (and also used by many high school teachers). Co-author, Ted Garland, Jr. has made the pre-publication article directly available to you from his website. Here’s the citation, online source and abstract of the article:

Radojcic, T., and T. Garland, Jr. 2014. Born to run: Experimental evolution of high voluntary exercise in mice. Science Scope. In press. (Link)

ABSTRACT

Students rarely get opportunities for inquiry-based learning when they study evolution. Most of their hands-on learning experiences are simulations or involve reviewing data that has already been collected. In this lesson, students examine the changes in leg bones of mice that have been artificially selected in the laboratory for high levels of wheel running. Wheel running by laboratory rodents can be viewed as a model of human voluntary exercise or as a model of the daily movements that other animals exhibit in nature, so it has relevance for both applied and basic science. As the wheel-running behavior of the "High Runner" lines of mice has evolved across tens of generations, many other changes have also been observed in the mice, encompassing other behaviors, physiology, and morphology. Students develop hypotheses about how the thigh bones (femurs) of animals that are good runners might be different from those that are not. They develop a protocol for testing their hypothesis by using digital photographs to measure the bones of selected and control animals (taken from generation 11), and then analyze their data to determine if their hypotheses were supported. This lesson, including supporting resources, can be accessed on The Evolution and Nature of Science Website (2012).

  • WEBEY Award Winner
  • About the WEBEY Award
  • Past Winners

Congratulations 2010 WEBEY Award Winner:

Maureen L. Stanton, UC Davis

"Dr. Stanton's research focuses on "Genetic variation in natural populations; Evolutionary responses of plant populations to heterogeneous evironments; Ecology and evoultion of plant reproductuve systems; Plant adaptation to abiotically stressful environments; multi-species mutualisms; and mechanisms of species coexistence."
trophy The Western Evolutionary Biology Biologist of the Year Prize, or Webby, is awarded by NERE, with UCLA Associate Director Jay Phelan chairing the award committee. The Prize is to be awarded annually to an individual from the west of North America (including western Canada and Mexico) who has contributed significantly to the scientific study of biological evolution.
Jay Phelan will be accepting nominations for this award at jay@ucla.edu. All individuals nominated for this award must be willing to attend and speak at the WEB meeting in the year that they receive the award. Current Directors of NERE, members of its advisory board, and University of California officials that supervise NERE are not eligible for this award.

2009 Webey Award went to Craig Moritz of UC-Berkeley

“Our research centers on the use of molecular approaches to study ecology and evolution and addresses questions including; (1) the use of molecular markers to infer current and historical population processes at various spatial and temporal scales; (2) the effects of historical changes in habitat on current distributions and diversity of faunas,
with particular reference to rainforest biotas; and (3) improving the use of molecular information in conservation biology and the development of strategies that recognize evolutionary processes.”

2008 Webey Award went to Kevin Padian of UC-Berkeley

Kevin Padian is a Professor of Integrative Biology, Curator of Paleontology, University of California Muesum of Paleontology and President of the National Center for Science Education. Padian's area of interest is in vertebrate evolution, especially the origins of flight and the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs. He served as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial, and his testimony was repeatedly cited in the court's decision.

2007 Webey Award went to Albert F. Bennett of UC-Irvine

I am interested in the evolution of physiological and morphological systems and in their adaptations to diverse environmental factors, particularly temperature. My research has examined organismal energetics, performance capacities, and thermoregulation and has attempted to uncover the functional bases of organism-level performance at both the enzymatic and systemic (e.g., muscular, circulatory) levels. I also utilize bacteria to study the processes and consequences of both evolutionary and phenotypic adaptation to novel thermal environments. My current research
projects include examinations of the plasticity of cardiopulmonary function in reptiles and the evolution of thermal and acidity adaptation in experimental evolutionary lineages of bacteria.

 

 

 

 
 

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