UA Evolution Lectureship Series Continues With Ecologist Richard Lenski

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The fourth in a series of public lectures on evolution will continue at The University of Alabama with ecologist Dr. Richard Lenski. Lenski will speak on “Experimental Evolution: Bugs and Bytes” Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m. in 127 Biology Building Auditorium on the UA campus.

Lenski, the Hannah Professor of Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University, specializes in experimental evolution. He and his colleagues perform experiments using two different, fast-evolving systems – bacteria and digital organisms – to investigate the dynamics of evolution. Working in the lab with the bacterium Escherichia coli, Lenski and colleagues can track evolutionary changes in real time. In one experiment, bacteria have been evolving for more than 30,000 generations now. The similarities and differences between the generations provide insight into the repeatability of evolution as well as the nature of evolutionary change.

His work has been published in the scientific journals Nature and Science. Lenski also collaborates on experiments using digital organisms – computer programs that replicate, mutate and evolve – and have demonstrated the evolutionary origins of complex new functions.

The Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution (ALLELE) is a two-year series of lectures and will continue with lectures on

• March 28: Dr. Kenneth Miller, biology professor at Brown University, will speak about the problems with intelligent design.
• April 13: Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, will speak on his recent writings in evolutionary biology.

The ALLELE series is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation, and UA’s College of Arts and Sciences and College of Education. The lectures are designed for non-technical audience and are free and open to the public.