Theoretical Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - Topic Group

The topic group takes place every other Friday from 10:30 to 12:00 in room 1929, on the first floor of the Biophore. During our sessions, we discuss a theoretical question by either going through a paper or listening to someone talk about their own work (or a mixture of the two). Each session is hosted by a different member of the topic group. The host is free to choose the topic of the day, the only requirement being that it must be theory in ecology and evolutionary biology. Our schedule is given below along with guidelines on how to host a session. Discussed papers are uploaded on this page a week before the session, it is important to read them before coming.

Each new session is announced by e-mail. To join our mailing list, please contact Thomas Lesaffre (thomas.lesaffre@unil.ch).

Next sessions

Guidelines for hosting a topic group session

Before the session

You are free to choose the topic of the day, as long as it fits the scope of our topic group (i.e. theory in ecology or evolutionary biology). You may decide to present some of your work, a published paper (which can be classical or recent), or a mixture of the two. However, after the session preceding yours at the latest, you must talk to Sara, Charles and/or Laurent about what you plan to present so that they validate it or suggest alternatives.
At least a week before your session, send a message to the organiser (thomas.lesaffre@unil.ch) briefly explaining your plan for the session (one or two sentences is enough) with the paper you wish to discuss attached, if any.
You are responsible for the session that was assigned to you. If you cannot host it, you need to e-mail the organiser well in advance to give time for someone to step in.

During the session

Start your presentation with a short introduction. Explain what you wish to accomplish by the end of the session, introduce the biological problem we are going to discuss, explain why it is interesting and how it fits in the literature.
Give a complete biological description of the model, which should include information on:

the general assumptions: what is the demography of the population (e.g. constant or fluctuating size, class-structure, is the population well-mixed or structured)? What are the features by which individuals are characterised (e.g. are sexes combined or separate, what are the traits relevant to characterise them in the model)?
the life cycle: what are the events occurring over the course of a timestep? Be thorough for each of them, and introduce relevant parameters and functions.
the evolving trait(s) and their underlying genetic architecture (e.g. ploidy, number of loci are involved, mutation model...).

Outline the method that we will use to attack the model and explain what we are going to ask our model (e.g. what are we solving for?). Importantly, the method does not have to be the one presented in the paper. If you think the same results can be obtained with a more modern approach for example, go for it!
Explain the logic of the analysis and how the results are obtained without going into the details of the calculations unless you think it is important to do so. In any case, you should avoid doing long derivations on the board.
Use the screen to show plots, important equations etc… If you make slides, they have to be clear but they do not need to be pretty (no one cares!). A Mathematica notebook can do the trick.

Past sessions

Iris Prigent

Session 06/12/2024

Overlapping generations can promote altruistic behaviors.

Thomas Lesaffre

Session 22/11/2024

Cheptou and Massol, 2009: Pollination fluctuations drive evolutionary syndromes linking dispersal and mating system.

Ewan Flintham

Session 08/11/2024

Henshaw et al., 2019: Sex roles and the evolution of parental care specialization.

Prajwal Padmanabha

Session 25/10/2024

Dahmen et al., 2000: Life and death near a windy oasis.

Ludovic Maisonneuve

Session 11/10/2024

Good and Desai, 2016: Evolution of Mutation Rates in Rapidly Adapting Asexual Populations.

Arthur Weyna

Session 27/09/2024

Sharma, Abhishek et al., 2023: Does assembly theory explain and quantify selection and evolution?.

Vitor Sudbrack

Session 21/06/2024

Hartfield and Otto, 2011: Recombination and hitchhiking of deleterious alleles.

Ehouarn Le Faou

Session 07/06/2024

van Velzen et al., 2009: The effect of cryptic female choice on sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites.

Cédric Perret

Session 24/05/2024

An introduction to the general equilibrium theory from economics and an application to biology.

Mai Thu Nguyen

Session 10/05/2024

Slatkin, 1977: Gene flow and genetic drift in a species subject to frequent local extinctions.

Afra Salazar

Session 26/04/2024

Ferriere et al., 2002: Cheating and the evolutionary stability of mutualisms.

Tim Connallon

Session by Invited Speaker, 12/04/2024 at 14:00

Reconciling theories of dominance with the relative rates of adaptive substitution on sex chromosomes and autosomes.

Arthur Weyna

Session 15/03/2024 at 13:30

Kozłowski and Teriokhin, 1999: Allocation of energy between growth and reproduction: The Pontryagin Maximum Principle solution for the case of age- and season-dependent mortality.

Massimo Amicone

Session 01/03/2024 at 13:30

Grilli et al., 2017: Feasibility and coexistence of large ecological communities.

Vitor Sudbrack

Session 16/02/2024

Sander Van Doorn and Dieckmann, 2006: The long-term evolution of multilocus traits under frequency-dependent disruptive selection.

Ewan Flintham

Session 08/12/2023

van Doorn and Weissing, 2006: Sexual conflict and the evolution of female preferences for indicators of male quality.