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Freshwater Colloquium: The Geography of Taxonomy, or What is a Type Locality, Anyway?
April 1 @ 3:00 pm - 3:50 pm
Dr. Mike Pauers will present “The Geography of Taxonomy, or What is a Type Locality, Anyway?” as part of the School of Freshwater Sciences spring colloquium.
Modern taxonomic practice demands that precise information about the location where a new species was found (the “type locality”) be included in the description of new species. Unfortunately, especially for many taxa described in the previous century, this information is often presented as a single and often imprecise location in published descriptions of these organisms, leaving the exact geographical range of the species unknown.
In this talk, Dr. Pauers will detail how such imprecise information in the descriptions of cichlid fishes from Lake Malawi (Nyasa) led him to retrace the steps of the explorers and ichthyologists who found and described these species to better understand the geographical distributions of these cichlids. This information, in turn, will make it easier to delimit and describe new species.
Dr. Pauers is an Associate Professor with UWM’s College of General Studies. As an ichthyologist at UWM and the Milwaukee Public Museum, his current research interests include descriptions of new species of cichlids from Lake Malawi, sexual selection in Lake Malawi cichlids, and the effects of hybridization on coloration and morphology in the cichlids of Lake Malawi.
This presentation is open to students, faculty, staff, alumni and the public.
The Colloquium series creates a platform where students, faculty, and scientists discuss emergent issues related to freshwater science research. Invited speakers present specific topics of their research, as well as policy, commercial, and industrial experiences.