UA ALLELE Series Looks at the Importance of Evolution in Biology

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Douglas Futuyma, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a leading researcher in ecology and evolution, will present his lecture, “Evolution: The Most Important Theory in Biology,”  March 24 at 7:30 p.m. in 127 Biology Building on The University of Alabama campus.

Futuyma, a graduate of Cornell University and the University of Michigan, researches the interaction between plant-eating insects and the plants themselves. He teaches ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University in New York.

In addition to his work with plants and insects, he has researched the genetic differences conferring adaptation to different host plants.

More recently his work has focused on whether constraints on genetic variation are likely to have influenced the phylogenetic history of host associations in a group of leaf beetles.

In his upcoming lecture, Futuyma will use his expertise to address the basic principles of evolution and explain why an understanding of evolution is indispensable to a good science education.

“Evolution is by far the most important theory in biology because it explains both the unity and diversity of organisms,” Futuyma said. “By enabling us to understand the characteristics of organisms, from their genes to their ecological relationships, evolutionary theory unifies the biological sciences.”

Futuyma is the author of the widely used textbook “Evolutionary Biology” and “Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,” an introduction to the creation-evolution controversy.

Futuyma has been president of the Society for the Study of Evolution and of the American Society of Naturalists. He was the editor of Evolution and the Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. He was awarded the Sewall Wright Award from the American Society of Naturalists, has been a Guggenheim Fellow and was a Fulbright Fellow in Australia.

His presentation is the fifth in the 2010-2011 Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution, known as ALLELE.

The lecture series, now in its fifth year, is supported by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences and the departments of anthropology, biological sciences, geological sciences, philosophy and psychology.

For more information on Futuyma or the ALLELE series in general, contact Dr. Leslie Rissler, chair of the Evolution Working Group and associate professor in the department of biological sciences at The University of Alabama. Information on the lecture series can be found here.

The lectures are designed for a non-technical audience and are free and open to the public.

The ALLELE lecture series is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.